A Ghostly Pursuit Developing a Passion for the Ghost Orchid BY KEITH DAVIS IN AUTUMN 1980, THIS MISPLACED winning touchdown of the Super Bowl, bachelor cruised down one street after then carried my 10-pound (4.5-kg) prize another, looking for yard sales in the to Red. uppercrust neighborhoods of Corpus Locking the book in the car, I Christi. Sitting barely 6 inches (15 cm) decided to go back to look at the off the pavement in my 1968 Triumph strange plants that filled such a huge GT-6 named “Red,” I saw hordes of portion of the lawn. Some plants had people converging on the front lawn tall canes, sort of bamboolike, some of a stately southern Texas home. This had large fan-shaped leaves not unlike particular sale had folding tables a palm seedling, some had flat leaves packed with every imaginable dust like two ranks of beaver tails, and others collector known to man as well as rack had fat clublike stems with one or two after rack stocked with once-stylish large stiff leaves on top. Many were in clothes. The 100-plus people crowding large 8- to 12-inch (20- to 30-cm) clay the yard were gathering around a large pots, while others were in baskets made section that had loosely organized of wood. Strangest of all were the ones rows of books and magazines. The left mounted on cork bark and something side of the yard was completely that looked to me like little bits of black covered with hundreds of odd-looking sticks glued together. Each plant had plants. Always the book fancier, I one or more name tags. Meaningless gravitated toward the “lawnbrary” to writing on the tags baffled me. The see what bargains could be had. Many names, such as Cattlianthe (syn. of the magazines and books were Laeliocattleya) Molly Tyler (Ctt. [syn. totally unfamiliar, with titles such as Lc.] Mrs. W.N. Elkins × C. Leda), Bulletin, Orchid Digest, Awards Zelenkoa (syn. Oncidium) onusta, Quarterly. There were stacks of Phalaenopsis bellina (syn. violacea), catalogs with names like Jones & Scully, Lycaste skinneri and Dendrobium Stewart, Armacost, Alberts & Merkel, spectabile, must have been the plants’ Hausermann and Vacherrot and pet names like my car named Red. Other Leucouffle. Why in the world did so tags had secret codes, such as “Pc 2 many people want these? Even to this Joe”, “Hld 4 Mac” and “FCC/AOS.” college graduate of forestry, ornamental Every one of the perhaps 1,000 plants horticulture and fruit production, these had the uni-price of $1. I could get a publications were unfamiliar. As the dozen of these beautiful but odd crowd frenzy intensified, I spied a large specimen plants into old Red if I drove book right at my feet. It had a familiar with the rear hatch open, put plants on title, Exotica. I leaned over to pick up the seat beside me, sat on the Exotica, this pristine volume, thinking it would and held one plant in my lap. As I drove be nice to have as a reference for my fledgling high school horticulture [1] The award-winning flower of class. As I grabbed the 6-inch- (15-cm-) Dendrophylax lindenii ‘Glade Spirit’, thick book, I was tackled by a portly woman who tried to rip the Exotica out FCC/AOS. “The clonal name comes of my hands. I spotted the book’s price from my imagination of the ‘ghost’ or of $20 and held on even tighter, ‘spirit’ and one of places they can be knowing it normally sold for well over found ... the Everglades ... spirit of the $100. Clutching the book, I took off in Glades ... or Glade Spirit,” says the the direction of the money table as if author. Grower of all plants shown in article: Keith Davis. headed toward the end zone for the KEITH DAVIS 408 ORCHIDS JULY 2009 WWW.AOS.ORG 1 WWW.AOS.ORG JULY 2009 ORCHIDS 409 4 miles (6.5 km) back to the school’s story to go with it; where it came from, of wings, a green head with two red greenhouse, I wondered if I would be what award it received, who wanted a eyes, and a long arching tail. What in able to identify my plants from my new division and who got a division and the world was Nature thinking when book. I ignored strange stares from what divisions of it were traded for. If this thing was designed? At the time, I passing motorists as I drove down you really love your plants, there is a had several hundred orchids in my South Padre Island Drive with plants story behind each one. Out of the 12 collection, mostly in the Cattleya poking out the rear and both sides of plants I purchased that day, the only alliance. I loved every plant, but this old Red. Little did I realize that I had one that did not die from “death by flower before me was more beautiful just taken the first step to becoming an dirt” was Cattlianthe Molly Tyler. That and mysterious than anything I had orchid nut. plant still thrives in my collection and ever witnessed. I determined right then That was my first year out of college blooms every Thanksgiving. I have and there that I would find and learn as a teacher of horticulture at W.B. Ray wondered so many times what stories how to grow this plant. Questioning High School in Corpus Christi, Texas. that owner could have shared. Now my the greenhouse curator, I was told that Our new Atlas greenhouse was plant has stories of its own. they had tried to grow the plants over sparsely populated with plants, so Over the years as I refined my many years, and this single plant was these new monsters really made things collection and skills as a grower, I the only one that survived to bloom. look more official. Over the next few realized that cork was indeed good for The other note of interest was that of weeks, I learned from the Exotica that growing some orchids, that tree-fern all the many orchid growers I knew, some of the gibberish on the tags was plaques (the little black sticks) were none had ever grown one. Something the genus and species of various perhaps even better, and that no so beautiful would surely be of interest orchids. The book said nothing about epiphytic orchid should be grown in to orchid growers; we are always how to grow the plants and I knew that rich, black soil. I had also heard about looking for the weird and wonderful. no plant could survive on cork bark or the legendary ghost orchid. However, Somehow I knew this was not going to the plaque of little black sticks or in I never found a photograph, much less be an easy challenge. those wooden baskets. I ripped the ran into a person who grew this My quest began by digging out plants off their mounts and put them in mysterious plant. I falsely concluded every catalog I owned. Besides pots of the richest, darkest, organic soil that this plant, if it existed, was not a collecting orchids, I saved orchid that I could find. I was sure that any real orchid. The thought of an orchid catalogs and had hundreds of them. plant in such luxurious soil would with a flower that looked like a ghost Most companies sold species by their explode in new growth and shower me kept me searching. One day while Latin names, and I discovered that the with blooms. As you might guess, the thumbing through a nonorchid plant I was looking for had undergone only thing that exploded was rot, and magazine, I saw a painting of a flower multiple name changes. I was taught in lots of it. In just a few short weeks, all suspended in mid air on a thin stalk. college that giving a Latin name to a but one of those 12 plants had gone to The bloom looked like a cross between plant was supposed to simplify and compost heaven. an albino frog and a ghost. I could unify the naming process. But this During the next few weeks, I met barely make out the caption at the orchid has had an identity crisis. With two wonderful people who helped bottom of the painting, but it read its uniqueness among flowering plants, change my life: Dr. C.L. (Sony) Norrell “Ghost Orchid.” I wasn’t sure if the the simple name of ghost orchid would and Mrs. Rosa Mueller. Before long, I painting was someone’s imagination of let everyone know exactly what you are was an active member in local orchid, what a ghost orchid should look like, talking about. Taxonomists thought that bromeliad, African violet, cactus and or if the painting was from a real flower. was too easy though, so it has been succulent and bonsai societies. It was intriguing and deepened my assigned to the various genera of Mueller took me to see her backyard desire to know more about this plant. Angraecum, Aeranthes, Polyrrhiza, collection of orchids and bromeliads. Several years later, while visiting Polyradicion, and for now, Dendro- Norrell showed me how to divide a the McMillan Greenhouses on the phylax. After days of searching, I found cattleya and interpret name tags. I went campus of the University of North that an orchid nursery named Oak Hill home with boxes of divisions that read Carolina in Charlotte, I nearly fell over Gardens had seedlings at one time.