Snowy Orchid (Platanthera nivea) - Reprise

Photographs taken over 'classic black' with my new Canon Digital Rebel T3i:

Corkscrew Swamp Ghost Orchid in Bloom

I have just been informed that the Corkscrew Swamp ghost orchid is in flower with seven flowers presently.
http://www.corkscrew.audubon.org/.

Sometimes, one must travel far...

...to find that orchid to photograph. In this case, our travels took us into southern Georgia to find Platanthera nivea in flower. The Florida localities that I tried came up empty, but it seems that these are running a little late this year.

First Publication Cover!

The reason I go out into the field to photograph Florida's wild orchids is because they interest me and I hope to share this interest with others, and this is its own reward. When one of my photographs is chosen for publication, I am honored and humbled that someone has considered using my work. Recently, I was approached to submit a photo of a Florida native orchid for use for the cover of the Florida State Horticultural Society Proceedings. After submitting several photos, we settled on a photo of "Miguel's ghost orchid", an orchid discovered by the late Miguel Urquia in a deep nook in the Fakahatchee Strand, that had four flowers open at once (I photographed it a few days before the final bud opened). They liked the photo so much, they wanted to use an additional photo for the back cover. Here are the two photos that appear on the front and back cover of the 2010 proceedings of the FSHS:

Front Cover:



Back Cover:



In celebration of this publication, I will be making limited edition prints of the photo of Miguel's ghost available for purchase at upcoming speaking engagements.

You can click here to go to the 2010 proceedings website.

It's Not Easy Being Green, Or Is It?

I recently came across a population of one of our more common orchids, Habenaria repens, in a wet ditch in the Orlando area. Known by the common name of 'Water Spider Orchid', plants are notoriously difficult to see even when in full flower, owing to the fact that the plant, along with its minuscule flowers (which are a bit over 1 cm wide), is completely green to yellow-green.

This might cause you to wonder, "How on earth would a completely green flower stand out enough from its background vegetation to be seen by a pollinator?" Just FYI, these flowers are not self-pollinating. It's easy enough to see a flash of pink, red, purple, blue, or buttery yellow against the sea of background vegetation and hone in on the location of a flower, even from a fair distance, but green just blends in with all the other greens that you see. The answer is that it's all a matter of timing.

Walk by the same roadside ditch at night and the flowers will be even less observable by the sense of sight. But even our ridiculously dull sense of smell will pick up a distinct, sweet fragrance wafting over the shallow water. A night flying moth, with a much stronger sense of smell, will be able to find these flowers from miles away, provided that it is not misled by all of our 'artificial moons' (electric lights of various kinds) that interfere with its sense of lunar navigation. Following this stream of sweet odor, these vampires of the Lepidoptera make their way to their quarry. Inserting their probosces into the spur-like nectary that is formed by the back of the lip, they drink sweet nectar from the last few millimeters at the end of the spur. This reward is not, however, offered without its price. The eyes of the insects engage the tips of the pollen-bearing structures (known as pollinia) which are coated with a sticky glue. Thus, when the insect withdraws, its eyes now bear the pollinia to carry them to the next flower. It's a dance between insect and flower that goes largely unobserved, unless you happen to shine a flashlight on a flowering stem at just the right moment.

This strategy of night-scented orchids is actually pretty common in Florida, although not all of them are green-flowered. Some flowers are brilliant white, which might make them more observable in the dim starlight or moonlight that reaches the inner recesses of the forests and swamps where many of these species make their homes. Here is a list of Floridian orchids that are known to be night-scented:

• Dendrophylax lindenii
• Dendrophylax porrectus
• Epidendrum amphistomum
• Epidendrum floridense
• Epidendrum magnoliae
• Epidendrum nocturnum
• Habenaria macroceratitis
• Habenaria odontopetala
• Habenaria quinqueseta
• Habenaria repens
• Tipularia discolor
  

And here is a list of species that are likely night-scented as well, extrapolating from their inconspicuously colored flowers:

• Epidendrum rigidum
• Epidendrum strobiliferum
• Habenaria distans
• Platanthera flava
• Platanthera clavellata

I would be interested to hear about anyone's experience around these species, whether or not they have a night fragrance as well.

Flowers of Early Summer

May in many areas of the northern hemisphere would be considered late spring. In central and southern Florida, it is decidedly summer-like already with temperatures in the 90s and a blazing sun that will burn your skin in a matter of minutes. Here are a few flowers that you might encounter in Florida at this time. It is by no means an exhaustive list, as many more species are in flower than just these...in fact, at any time of the year in Florida, as many as 40 species might be in flower somewhere in our wild areas. Click each thumbnail to go to the full profile page for the species on my website.

Grass Pink (Calopogon tuberosus)


Scarlet Ladies Tresses (Sacoila lanceolata)


Florida Dancing Lady Orchid (Tolumnia bahamensis)


Water Spider Orchid (Habenaria repens)


Spring Ladies Tresses (Spiranthes vernalis)



Rose Pogonia (Pogonia ophioglossoides)


Florida Butterfly Orchid (Encyclia tampensis)

Website Updates - A New Milestone

The Florida's Native and Naturalized Orchids Website has reached a new milestone with 40 plant profiles in the gallery and 250 photos in total. Check it out by following the link below:

>>> The Florida Native Orchid Gallery Page <<<

Enjoy!

A Few Weeks Too Late: Plants in Motion

It's no secret that my guiding passion in nature photography is botany...I love plants, especially orchids, but also plants in general. To that end, I set out often enough into the field hunting rare plants in their environment to photograph them and chronicle them for others to enjoy. Many wildlife photographers (folks I like to call 'faunists') tend to look down on this as "easy peasy lemon squeezie" work. They do not appreciate the complications a botanical photographer faces in the field...after all, they say, plants don't move, unlike that lion out on the African plains or that rare bird that would be spooked away had the photographer not spent hours sitting in a blind. To this I would beg to differ...plants do indeed move. They may not pick their roots up and transport themselves to a new location, but they are ever on the move nonetheless.

Take the scrub lupine for example. I was told a few weeks ago that these were in bloom, so one week ago, I set out to relocate some previously planted specimens near where my children and I volunteered to plant out new seedlings. When we arrived, we were met with bitter disappointment...all the flowers had finished, leaving a healthy stalk of developing seed pods...material for next year's seedling planting, I am sure. We headed to another nearby park where these were known to grow naturally. Again, not a flower was to be seen, where two or three weeks ago, we would have seen these in full flower. We will have to return earlier next year to catch these in flower. Plants in motion.



Many of the native orchids are the same way. You can pass by a location and not see a single plant as their developing buds blend in with the greenery. A few weeks later, all the flowers have finished and wilted to a deep brown color, again blending into the background vegetation. Unless you are there during the two week window when their flowers flushed a brilliant orange, you would never know that an orchid grew there. Plants in motion.

Several species of orchids further complicate our lives by having flowers that last for only one morning and wilt by afternoon...several species of Vanilla do this, as well as Triphora trianthophora and Triphora craigheadii. The latter two add insult to injury by synchronous blooming - every member of the colony will bloom on the same morning. Plants in motion.

Many of the rarer orchids and other plants in Florida exist in small populations in relatively inaccessible areas requiring many hours of driving and walking, often following vague directions to their locations. Plants in motion.

Finally, some of the rarest plants do indeed move. Whether by environmental catastrophes or the poacher's unscrupulous actions, known populations sometimes become entirely wiped out, only to have a new population discovered in a different area nearby, these new locations kept a closely guarded secret lest the same thing happen again. Or, perhaps, the last population of a species in Florida is wiped out for good, never to be seen again...we have twelve such orchid species that have not been seen for many years. Plants in motion.

So next time your admire that photograph of a rare plant, such as what might be seen in the native orchid gallery, linked to the giant 'View the Gallery' image at the top of this blog, keep in mind that the photographer may have spent many hours, if not days, weeks, months, or even years, hunting down this quarry and bringing you that photograph as he chases down plants ever in motion.

Master of Disguise

This past weekend, while out on a photography trip, we came across this little girl hanging out on a Spring Ladies Tresses (Spiranthes vernalis) inflorescence. Spiders are often encountered on flowers of all sorts, mostly ambush predators like this Crab Spider and the Green Lynx Spider. They lie in wait for a hapless insect to come near them and then they pounce! These spiders are known to alter their coloration to match their surroundings and thus blend in. Imagine the next time you go to your refrigerator, a predator disguised as a salami pounces on you and eats you!

Old Man of the Swamp - Cigar Orchid (Cyrtopodium punctatum)

This is the story of the Old Man of the Swamp.

Years ago, perhaps around the same time that this photograph was taken of a cartload of orchids cribbed from the swamps (including Cigar Orchids, Mule-ear Oncidiums, and Dollar Orchids - Cyrtopodum punctatum, Trichocentrum undulatum, and Prosthechea boothiana, respectively),


a small cigar orchid (Cyrtopodium punctatum) began its tenuous existence on a buttonwood somewhere deep in the Everglades. As time went on, its forest grew, never too tall, as this was a harsh environment-- shielding this plant from unfriendly eyes. In time, long after these orchid collectors had left, it became a large specimen, engulfing the fork in the tree that it called home.


Eventually, however, the winds of a hurricane came barreling through the 'glades, knocking down the surrounding trees and killing the tree that this orchid calls home, reducing it to a bare stump crowned with the orchid. Now an old man, yet hale and hearty, it continues to offer up its fragrant saffron-and-crimson flowers, each about an inch across, to the busying bumblebees that visit it in hopes of collecting nectar.


We, too, come here to its ancient ruin of a home, in a different era where some folks are more apt to leave plants be than to try to collect them, destined to die in some garden--especially considering the fact that this plant grows on federally protected property. We visit it in its waning years, for, surely, its host stump cannot forestall wind, weather, and the decay of time forever. One day, hopefully many years from now, it will plunge into the brackish water below and meet its final demise, but not before it has shed many dust-like seeds into the surrounding forest still standing...these seeds may become new seedlings, and if left undisturbed by wind, water, men, and the threat of a rising ocean, they may become massive plants like this old man--destined to repeat his life cycle and continue the existence of his kind well into the future.


You can view my Cowhorn/Cigar Orchid information page at the following link:

>>> Cowhorn/Cigar Orchid Information Page <<<

Florida's First Native Slipper Orchid?!

I have just received word from a fellow orchid photographer exploring in an undisclosed area (and one that will remain undisclosed) in South Florida that he has discovered what appears to be a colony of a species of Phragmipedium (or, who knows...a completely new genus?) growing deep in the swamps. The plants are presently in high bud. I will be heading down in the next week or two when the buds open...from the photos I've seen so far, there is already a splash of orange on the lips of the developing flowers....AND....they seem to have some rather packed-in petals similar to Phrag caudatum. So, colorful, and potentially long-petaled and growing in Florida? Who could ask for more?

This is really great news, as the whole slipper orchid clan has been completely unrepresented in Florida. There have been reports in the past of species of Cypripedium being found in the northern counties, but none have been substantiated.

More soon.

If you didn't realize this by now, this was an April Fools' Day joke.

New Florida Orchid Book Available

My good friend and fellow nature and Florida orchid photographer, Rich Leighton, has just released a new 'coffee table' type book featuring many of his native orchid photos. I have not seen the book itself, but I have seen his photos, and they are fantastic. Here is a link where you can order the book:

http://www.floridanaturephotography.com/bookstore/

and here is a link to a brief promotional video he has made about it:

http://www.floridanaturephotography.com/blog/our-first-book-native-orchids-of-florida-is-now-available/

--Prem

Photo Featured in new National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to North American Wildflowers

The photo that you see above is featured in the entry for the Florida Butterfly Orchid (Encyclia tampensis) in the new National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Wildflowers of North America (click to view the book on Amazon.com). I am honored and humbled to have this photo included in this epic work.

A Giant of Liliputian Proportions - Pteroglossaspis ecristata

Pteroglossaspis ecristata is a plant of contradictions. While once fairly common in Florida, its population has declined in recent years, becoming much harder to find in flower. Its paper-thin leaves are reinforced with stiff veins, making them resemble a palmetto seedling. Its sometimes exceptionally tall flowering stems are capped with small flowers, each only 1 to 1.5 cm tall.


My son, Josh, admiring a tall flowering plant.

While inflorescences up to 5.5 feet (1.7 meters) are not unheard of, a more typical flowering stem height is 2 to 3 feet (0.7 to 0.9 meters) tall.



The flowers themselves are not extraordinarily attractive...perhaps more bizarre than anything else. Luer, in an illustration in his book, likens them to a number of turbaned Sikhs peering around the stem. Paul Martin Brown describes them as "green and black orchids on a stick". It is often hard to capture more than one or two flowers face-on in a photograph owing to how the flowers twist around the stem.



You can read more about this species here:

>> Pteroglossaspis ecristata information page <<

Trail Tales (or Stuff I've Seen While Hunting For Orchids), Part 5

While out photographing orchids in the Florida panhandle, we found this lovely specimen growing in a roadside bog. This is the white-topped pitcher plant (Sarracenia leucophylla).



Pitcher plants are a type of carnivorous plant, trapping insects in a pool of liquid inside the hollowed-out leaves. The inside of the pitcher is waxy and covered with downward-pointing hairs that make it easy for an insect to fall in but difficult to get out. The pool of liquid contains digestive fluids that break down the insects into basic nutrients that the plants can absorb...nutrients that are generally lacking in the highly acidic bog soil where these plants grow.

The Importance of Being Earnest Observant

When I was a teenager, my mom and I would often take drives out into the Apalachicola National Forest or the Lake Talquin State Forest nearby just to see what could be seen. As we ran across interesting plants that we had not seen before, we would consult our guidebooks, as well as the resident botanist and herbarium director at Florida State University, Dr. Loran Anderson (now retired). We had established a good rapport with him and I especially would report any new orchid finds. I was able to help him obtain a few orchid specimens for his herbarium that he did not have, as well as establish new records for several species not seen before in Leon County - Zeuxine strateumatica, Platanthera flava, and Platanthera ciliaris.

I also remember running across a population of Spiranthes that resembled S. praecox, but the habit and blooming time of these was off (about a month too early and in woodlands, as opposed to open, wet areas). I had brought this to Dr. Anderson's attention on occasion, but never really pursued the matter further. About a decade later, Paul Martin Brown described this species formally as Spiranthes sylvatica, or the Woodland Ladies' Tresses.

Drat.

Fast forward to a year or two ago. My son, Josh, and I were photographing Malaxis spicata in an area near Ocala, FL. While out there, Josh brought to my attention a plant that had variegated leaves. I remember reading in Paul Martin Brown's Wild Orchids of Florida about a variegated Malaxis, so I chalked it up to another find of this form. I did photograph it, as it appeared interesting. When I consulted the book back at home, I realized that he had described a variegated form of Malaxis unifolia, not M. spicata. In other words, this was a form that had not yet been formally introduced to science! Thankfully, I was able to correlate the gps trail that our Garmin unit had recorded with the time stamp of the photograph, so we had an approximate locality for the plant. Upon our return, after about an hour of searching for it, we relocated the plant, put a colored flag on it, and covered it with a wire hanging basket to protect it from deer and hog browse.

We brought this plant to Paul's attention, and he formally described the variegated form of this species in the North American Native Orchid Journal in the August 2009 edition as Malaxis spicata forma variegata P.M. Brown, P. & J. Subrahmanyam forma nov. . You can view this journal on-line at the following link:

http://culturesheet.org/_media/users:nanoj:nanoj_15_1_.pdf

And here is the photograph of this newly described form that we saw that day:



So, while I had missed out on the opportunity to bring an entirely new species to science, which would be, admittedly, much cooler, I did have the opportunity to bring a newly described form of an existing species to science. And, as I continue to head out into the field to photograph orchid species, who knows what might still be out there to discover?

As a footnote, a colleague of mine was out photographing the variegated Malaxis and discovered a plant nearby completely lacking the orange color in the flowers...in other words, an albescent form of the species. This form was also described in the same article and named after his daughter Morgan as Malaxis spicata forma morganiae P. M. Brown.

A Truly Albino Grass Pink.

In this case, albino would mean a complete lack of the typical pink color. The orange-yellow in the psuedo-pollen bristles persists.



This is only the second time in my life that I've seen a grass pink this color. Below is a typical color form:



You can read more about this species on its profile page:
Grass Pink (Calopogon tuberosus)

Website Updates - a Septet of New Orchid Pages

I have updated the website with seven new orchid pages. In addition to the updates, I have added functionality to the gallery page to display a '**NEW**' beneath any orchid whose page has been added within the last two weeks. But, just so you don't have to go hunting for the '**NEW**' tags, here are the seven species added to the website (bringing the grand total to 36 species with 210 photos between them all):

Eulophia alta

Epidendrum amphistomum

Ionopsis utricularoides

Malaxis spicata

Malaxis unifolia

Spiranthes odorata

Tolumnia bahamensis

Planting Scrub Lupines (Lupinus westianus var. aridorum)

On December 8, 2010, three of my sons (Timothy, Isaac, and Kenny) and I joined a volunteer group, along with a researcher from Bok Tower gardens, planting scrub lupine (Lupinus westianus var. aridorum) at Tibet Butler Nature Preserve in the Orlando, FL area. This lupine is endemic to central Florida, and is only known from a few isolated populations, so it is considered critically endangered. It is a biennial or short-lived perennial that bears racemes of pretty, purple flowers. Lupines are not orchids, but are members of the pea family--although they do share the trait of bilateral symmetry with the orchids.

Juliet Rynear, from Bok Tower Gardens, has been growing a number of seedlings of this plant in the hope of expanding its population -- volunteer groups have planted these out in several areas in central Florida, re-establishing populations where this plant has been known to grow historically, as well as creating new ones.

We met on a rather cool, sunny morning with a group of about 10 others and got straight to work, helping to plant 300-some-odd plants during the course of the morning. Here are some photos taken that day:


Plants in their peat pots.

Each has a blue flag and an "identity coin" with the individual's ID number...researchers have kept careful data on each seed as it was planted...where it came from, when it was planted, etc. so that the plants that successfully grow to maturity can be tracked.


Kenny planting a seedling.


Isaac planting a seedling.


Tim planting a seedling.


Seedling in its new home.


A more mature plant, planted a year or two ago. It should bloom in the next year.

You can learn more about this species via the following links:

http://www.fnai.org/FieldGuide/pdf/Lupinus_aridorum.pdf

http://hawthornhillwildflowers.blogspot.com/2010/01/scrub-lupine-lupinus-aridorum.html

http://www.centerforplantconservation.org/collection/cpc_viewprofile.asp?CPCNum=2693

http://www.florida.plantatlas.usf.edu/Plant.aspx?id=1243

We left a bit before all the seedlings were planted out in the hope of finding some Spiranthes longilabris still in flower in a wildlife management area several hours south. Alas, we found by sheer chance a few plants already bloomed out and in fruit, so better luck next year.

I will be back to photograph the lupines when it is their time to bloom this year.

Two Native Orchid Related Articles

A couple of articles/websites came up on my Google news alerts regarding native orchids. I thought it might be nice to share:

• Conservation of Epiphytic Orchids of South Florida


• Orchids' Health Speaks Volumes

Enjoy!

---Prem

A Monumental Event

Well, at least for me, it is. All the gallery pages on the Florida Native Orchids Website have now been converted over to the new database-driven gallery format. This will allow, over the upcoming months, to enhance the gallery and search functionality of the site. The latest pages to be updated are the following:


Bearded Grass Pink (Calopogon barbatus)

Pale Grass Pink (Calopogon pallidus)

Large Whorled Pogonia (Isotria verticillata)

Cranefly Orchid (Tipularia discolor)

Spring Coralroot (Corallorhiza wisteriana)

Scarlet Ladies' Tresses

Spring Ladies' Tresses (Spiranthes vernalis)

Grass-leaved Ladies' Tresses (Spiranthes praecox)

Trail Tales (or Stuff I've Seen While Hunting For Orchids), Part 4

On the day when a colleague, Rich Leighton, and I went to photograph the White Fringed Orchid, he mentioned that there was a scenic waterfall at a local park not too far away, Falling Creek Falls Park, north of Lake City. Since we had a few hours of sunlight left, I was game to check it out...waterfalls are as rare as hen's teeth in Florida.

It's a very nice, small park maintained by the Suwannee Water Management District. Falling Creek is itself a small tributary of the Suwannee River. Here is a page with info on the park:

>>> Falling Creek Falls Park <<<

The waterfall itself plunges over a limestone ledge 10 feet or so into the pool below. The strength of the waterfall is intimately tied to water levels...during the dry season, it's barely a trickle, while during the wet season, you can hear the falls a good bit before you see them.

Click the picture below for an expanded view:
This is a typical 'blackwater creek', colored by tannic acid released by decaying vegetation along the creek's route. Tannic acid is the same ingredient that gives a nice glass of southern sweetened iced tea its brownish color. This also gives the falls a distinctively tan-brown color.