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I have released a new wall calendar for 2015 featuring some of Florida's rarest orchids. The Florida's Endangered Orchids calendar features 12 stunning photographs of our rarest and most beautiful and intriguing orchids. These will make great Christmas (or other) presents for your friends, loved ones, and co-workers.
Here is the cover image from this handsome calendar:
and here are a few featured images from this calendar:
To order your own calendar, follow the link below:
Florida's Endangered Orchids Calendar.
This is a major milestone! It is the 50th native orchid profile/photo gallery published to the Florida Native and Naturalized Orchids website. This is one of the rarer orchids in our state, Campylocentrum pachyrrhizum, known alternately as the Ribbon Orchid or the Thick-root Orchid. It is distantly related to the Ghost Orchid (Dendrophylax lindenii) and is a bit more common, but still exceedlingly rare. To make matters worse for this species, individual plants are sometimes poached because structurally, they resemble Ghost Orchids somewhat. Imagine the disappointment for said poacher when, instead of seeing a large, white flower (if the plant even lives to flowering), he/she sees a tiny, inconspicuous flower.
Plants of this species can be easily distinguished from Ghost Orchids even when out of flower. Read up on them on the new gallery/profile to educate yourself on this species. Here is the profile entry:
http://www.flnativeorchids.com/natives_gallery/campylocentrum_pachyrrhizum.htm
And here is one of the images from the profile:
Enjoy!
I have posted a new profile on the Florida Native Orchid site for Carter's Orchid (Basiphyllaea corallicola). It is an exceedingly rare orchid, found only on a very few occasions in the ever shrinking (due to rampant overdevelopment) pine rockland ecosystem.
Here is the link to the profile:
http://flnativeorchids.com/natives_gallery/basiphyllaea_corallicola.htm
and here is one of the images from the new page:
I have posted a profile for the Two-keeled Galeandra (G. bicarinata) on the Florida Native Orchids Page:
http://flnativeorchids.com/natives_gallery/galeandra_bicarinata.htm
This orchid is much rarer than the Ghost Orchid, with only a few dozen individuals found scattered throughout several hardwood hammocks in extreme southern Florida.
Yes, Halloweed, not Halloween...where we celebrate hallowed weeds!
Here are a few spooky-looking or spooky-named fall-blooming orchids from the state of Florida:
Habenaria
odontopetala, or the toothpetal false rein orchid, is in flower now.
The small, 1/2-inch-wide flowers look like small goblins. The
spiderwebs add to the spooky effect. Did I mention that these flowers
are only fragrant at night? Haunting Florida swamps and forests with
their ghostly fragrance.
Another
fall-blooming orchid, the Wild Coco (Eulophia alta) blooms in September
in central Florida, spreading into December in south Florida. The
flowers have somewhat of a resemblance to erect-eared, fanged dog heads.
With multiple "heads" per spike (which can reach up to five feet
tall), these are a worthy botanical analogue of Cerberus, the
multi-headed dog guarding the underworld in Greco-Roman mythology.
Usually,
this orchid blooms in summertime, although occasional fall-blooming
plants are found. Still, with the common name of Ghost Orchid,
Dendrophylax lindenii is a perfect Halloween orchid. It is also keenly
night fragrant, pollinated by the Giant Sphinx Moth that also inhabits
Florida's haunted southern swamps.
Finally, Ponthieva racemosa
is known as the Shadow Witch, owing to its habit of growing in deep,
shadowy wooded areas. Blooming in October in northern Florida, it
blooms in November in central Florida and December in the far southern
end. This lovely little orchid is known for casting deep spells of wonder on those who find her in her secretive lair.
Click the "View the Gallery" graphic at the top of this blog page to see many more photos of Florida's amazing orchids.
Thank you so much, Port St. Lucie Orchid Society, for having me speak at your meeting. You were a very friendly and enthusiastic crowd.
Thank you so much to the Tampa Bay Orchid Society for having me speak at their monthly meeting this past August:
Tampa Bay Orchid Society Web Page
My topic was "A Year in the Bog with Florida's Orchids", covering a year's worth of terrestrial orchids resident in acid bogs and wetlands in the state of Florida.
I have posted a profile of Vanilla mexicana (common name: Fuchs' Vanilla, Mexican Vanilla) to the Florida Native and Naturalized Orchids page, giving some detailed information on this species, its historical range, photos, classification, synonymy and other data. A naturalist/photographer friend of mine, Chris Evans, had relocated a seemingly extirpated population of these extremely rare plants in a natural area in southeastern Florida. I joined him the next weekend to explore the nearby swamp, armed with some additional information on specific plant locations. In the process, we found a very robust, large plant sporting many seed pods, a bud and an open flower.
Photographing the flower was particularly challenging, as it was roughly 12 feet up the tree, thankfully in some very strong, slightly-diffused sunlight, which allowed a fast shutter speed and good depth of field. My two sons who had accompanied me helped stabilize the fully extended tripod with my camera mounted on top, angling downward. Using the flip-out screen on my Canon T3i, I was able to judge approximately where the camera was pointing in live preview mode. I then used my infrared remote trigger to fire off shot after shot. Many shots were blurry or misframed, but a few came out in decent shape. Combining two shots with slightly different focal points, I was able to get the majority of the highly 3-dimensional flower in focus.
Plant climbing up a Sabal Palm (Sabal palmetto) tree:
Flower:
Please follow the link below to see the full on-line profile for this species:
Enjoy!
