Brassia Caudata, the So-Called

Page 8, Fall, 1985, PALMETTO SOUTH PART II by Chuck McCartney park are protected by law. Of South Florida's much-sought Brassia caudata,the so-called"Spider Orchid" - were highly prized by Oncidium species,O. floridanum is Oncidium carthagenense, not strictly an epiphyte. Most often it although reported for Cape Sable, orchid growers and all known is found growing in the leaf litter probably never was in Florida. Its specimens seem to have been covering the eroded limestone rock inclusion on the state's list of native collected from their few natural habitats. However, 20-25 years ago, bases of hardwood hammocks of orchid flora probably is based on a EvergladesNational Park.There, this misidentification of the place of Dr. luer was able to find and photograph specimens of each in robust species grows in healthy origin of a plant of this species by colonies in a number of hammocks of John Kunkel Small in 1916. Everglades National Park. This was long Pine Key. I also have seen a few accomplished with the help of Dr. plants north of Monroe Station west Frank C. Craighead, Sr., who had removed specimens of these two of the Monument Road in the Big Cypress, and the species is reported sought-after species from their more for the Naples area. accessible haunts to isolated and secret hammocks in remote areas of The pretty and much-collected Oncidium bahamense (0. variega- long Pine Key. But even these plants turn subsp. bahamense) apparently seem to have disappeared because they have eluded recent observers. grew in a limited area of sand pine and rosemary scrub along coastal Also, the Brassiaespecially seems to be very cold-sensitive and the last areas of northern Palm Beach and Martin counties. Many of these known plant of this species in the - ,,- former dune areas have been wild in South Florida succumbed lonopsis utricu/arioides following the frigid winter of 1977, destroyed to make way for condominiums. Although still Florida, only the dainty /onopsis when it snowed in Miami. occasionally found elsewhere, it now utricu/arioides continues to be Nevertheless, both of these species widespread, inhabiting the swamp appears to be most abundant only in are present in nearby Cuba and could forests of the Big Cypress and the JonathanDickinson State Park, where be re-introduced by natural means at Fakahatchee Strand, where it usually it is somewhat protected from some later date. And it's not entirely collectors. Remember, however, that is found dangling from pond-apple impossible that isolated specimens "abundant" is a relative term in this or pop-ash trees by a few slender could still existon sometree limb of a rnnt~. hammock somewhere within Everglades National Park. Leochi/us /abiatus has been reported for only a single station Cyrtopod i um- puncta t-um - ~"~"~ ~ ~--- deep within the Fakahatcheeand is Cyrtopodium punctatum, Florida's famed "Cow Horn Orchid," has long Oncidiumluridum unknown to me. Oncidium luridum, Florida's highly The remaining Oncidium relatives, been popular with hobbyists because of its showy sprays of yellowish desirable "Mule's Ear Orchid," now Brassia caudata and Macradenia apparently is found only in /utescens, probably have been flowers spotted with brown and, inaccessible buttonwood forests at extirpated in their few South Florida thus, the species has been hunted the very southern tip of the peninsula habitats, the northernmost limits of unmercifully. Collectors have vastly in Everglades National Park. The their range. Both formerly were diminished its numbers. Still, it is found in tropical hardwood inaccessibility of the few remaining possible to find occasional plants, although few approach the gigantic (and occasionally extensive) colonies hammocks near Homestead and in is perhaps the only reason the species the Long Pine Key section of proportions reported earlier in this still exists in the wild in Florida- EvergladesNational Park.But the two century. In the Big Cypress, the despite the fact that the olants in the species - especially the showy spe:cies grows near the bases of PALMETTO, Fall. 1985. Page 9 cypress trees in open swamp forests. single plants. Of the other two pleur- In Everglades National Park, it grows othallids reported for South Florida, in the tops of Iysilomas and other one, Restrepiella ophiocephala, may large trees at the top of the forest not actually have come from the state canopy in some hardwood at all. The third, the lilliputian hammocks and also inhabits the Lepanthopsis melanantha, is found buttonwood forests of Cape Sable. It only sparingly in the Fakahatcheeand is reported for the Fakahatchee as even then only by very keen-eyed wel,. Even suburbanized Broward observers. Although I have never County once had populations of this seen it, I know individuals who have. species. One particularly large plant The Fakahatchee also has harbored i was "rescued" a couple of years ago plants of Bulbophyllum pachyrha- from a cypress forest site being -""",1..- - -- chis, sometimes called the "Rat-Tail Vanilla barbellata 1I bulldozed to make way for yet Orchid" because of the thickened another shopping center. Pieces of the lower Keys. It also is said to be still rachis of its inflorescence (hence the the plant were re-established in found on occasion on Key largo in species name). However, it appears Everglades National Park, the the Upper Keys.The only population that most of these plants have been loxahatchee National Wildlife I knew - a healthy, blooming one- collected by orchid hunters who Refuge, and at least one Broward grew in the Taylor Slough Basin west have stumbled upon its few haunts. County park. Fires are also a serious of Homestead. Alas, these plants Colonies of Maxillaria crassifolia threat to this species. Some of the burned to a crisp in fires during the reveal themselves on rare occasions finest plants I knew in the spring of 1975. (These fires were in the pond-apple sloughs of the northeastern Big Cypress were possibly arson, set under very Fakahatchee. A second Maxillaria destroyed when an intentionally set suspicious circumstances, supposed- species, tentatively identified as M. fire burned out of control. ly to prevent the land from being conferta, has been found in one Dr. luer cites reports of yellow- preserved for its unique Everglades location in the Fakahatchee by Dade County Parks naturalist Roger L. flowered Cyrtopodium plants, environment.) Hammer. tentatively identified as C. Vanilla dilloniana, supposedly andersonii, being found in the wild found only once in Miami's long- But all is not gloomy for some of but none has been verified. This destroyed Brickell Hammock, is a the rare tropical epiphytic orchids of species or another very like it doubtful species. In photographs, it South Florida. The leafless soecies of reportedly also has succeeded in looks like little more than a naturalizing itself in some neighbor- hammock-habitat variant of V. hoods south of Miami, where barbellata. populations of exotic Cyrtopodium Florida's fifth Vanilla species, the specieshave been grown. At present, large-leaved and attractive-flowered this is a doubtful species in the native V. mexicana(V. inodora in luer) was orchid flora of Florida. apparently extirpated in its only Vanilla is an aberrant, somewhat known location south of Florida City. primitive vine-growing orchid which However, it has been discovered only bridges the gap between an initial recently in a coastal hammock of terrestrial lifestyle and the epiphytic Martin County - four counties habit it seemingly must achieve if it is further north than its previously to bloom and reproduce. Vanilla known station! The species species,especially V. phaeantha, with supposedly is plentiful in its one new its large and ephemeral flowers, are location. found sparingly in the Fakahatchee. Deep within the Fakahatchee Thereare alsoreports of V.planifolia, Strand dwell a few tropical epiphytes Polyrad;c;on linden;; the vanilla of the spice trade, for that that are found nowhere else in North native orchids seem fairly healthy for locality. However,the latter speciesis America. Of the pleurothallids, only the present. It's still easy to go into somewhat questionable as a native the large Pleurothallis gelida is placesin the Big Cypressand find the orchid. Its presencehere seemsto be encountered with any regularity - large-flowered and eerie Polyradi- I due to the intervention of early man and even then usually as isolated cion lindenii (Polyrrhiza lindenii) on in Florida, possibly coming here in trees in deep pond-apple sloughs. ~ trade with Central American This is Florida's famed "Ghost cultures. The reason for this Orchid." In the central part of the supposition is that the major known Fakahatchee Strand, Campylocen- localities for V. planifolia in Florida trum pachyrrhizum, with its flat, are associated with former Indian ribbon-like roots, is still relatively habitations. I have never seen V. abundant. The miniature Harrisella planifolia in the wild. .c porrecta (H. filiformis) is more Vanilla barbellata, called the widespread. It's supposed to be "Worm Vine" because of its thick, common in old citrus groves in most often leafless, jointed stems, Central Florida. And not only is it well reportedly is still plentiful in the . established in the Big Cypress and the mangrove fringe of Everglades ~"-- -- Fakahatchee but it even shows up in National Park and on Big Pine Key in P/eurotha//is ge/ida urbanized Broward County!.

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