A New County Was Added to the List of Known Florida Counties for the Rare Florida Native Orchid, Calopogon multiflorus.
Prem Subrahmanyam, curator of the Florida Native Orchid website, Facebook page, and blog, was exploring an area of the Apalachicola National Forest on Sunday, May 4, 2014 near Tallahassee, Florida (Leon County). In a recently prescribed burned area, he found a small population (8 individual plants) of the rare orchid species, Calopogon multiflorus, commonly known as the Many-flowered Grass Pink. This species was recently upgraded from endangered to threatened with the latest guidance released by the Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Appropriate officials have been contacted to let them know about this newly discovered population. The previously closest known population to this location was 30 miles away in Liberty County, Florida.
The gallery page for this species on the Florida Native Orchid page has been updated with a new photograph taken of a member of this population, along with an updated map. Those can be viewed at the following link:
http://www.flnativeorchids.com/natives_gallery/calopogon_multiflorus.htm
This brings to four the number of species that Prem Subrahmanyam has been the first to discover growing in Leon County, Florida. Previous first discoveries were Platanthera flava, Platanthera ciliaris, and Zeuxine strateumatica.
