Epidendrum secundum is a native orchid of Puerto Rico. It can be found at middle elevations in many places in the mountainous interior of the island, particularly to the west of the island (Ackerman). I have found this plant growing in roadsides, landslides, fern prairies and places were the local vegetation has been disturbed or damaged in some way. I have seen it near Toro Negro and Maricao. In thirty years of visiting the local forests I have seen it growing epiphytically only, all the other times I have found this plant it is always growing in the ground most often under the shade of small sparsely leafed shrubs that allow a lot of light to reach the orchids. In Puerto Rico the plant size of this orchid varies wildly, I have found some that were only a few inches tall (which were blooming!) to some that reached two to three feet in length. The larger and healthier plants are those growing over fast draining rocky ground overlain with a layer of decaying leaves and woody material. Plants that are exposed to full sun for part of the day but are sheltered from the strongest sunlight at midday by neighboring bushes or trees and have their roots in a spot where there is a substantial accumulation of forest floor litter that is shaded from full sun are usually the largest.
The size of the flowers and the inflorescence is affected to a certain degree by the vigor of the plant, larger plants produce both larger flowers and more of them. But in general the inflorescences of the native Epidendrum secundum are quite small and relatively few flowered when compared with plants identified as that same species in horticulture. I have seen the tiniest flowers and the fewest flowered inflorescences in plants growing in recent landslides in places where there is little or no leaf litter and the roots are exposed. Sometimes the plants in these situations are so small it is amazing to see them blooming.
The leaves also vary in their color, plants growing among the rocks of a recent landslide were only a few inches tall and a deep reddish purple color, plants growing in a shady location were a deep green. Flower color is lilac but the shade and saturation of the color varies, some plants have flowers that are a pale rose, other plants have flowers in deeper shades of lilac.
The native Epi. secundum, although it is superficially similar to the cultivated plants identified as secundum that is commonly grown all over the island, but it also has some intriguing differences that set it apart. Wild plants are never seen to form the large tangles of many blooming stems that make the cultivated forms so attractive. Compared with cultivated forms the inflorescences are few flowered. The flowers are always smaller than cultivated forms and tend to be closely clustered. I have never seen wild Epi. secundum in cultivation anywhere, even among fanciers of native orchids, perhaps it is because of the availability of plants with larger flowers in horticulture. I once took a keiki from a mature plant to see if it would grow in captivity but the plant failed to thrive and eventually died. Since I have other Epi. secundum and they have always grown without complaint, it may be that this orchid doesn’t do well under the heat and dryness of the coastal lowlands.
One curious thing about this orchid is that when you visit its native haunts even though you can see what seems like lots of suitable habitat where it could conceivably grow very well, its distribution is patchy, with long stretches of habitat where not a single plant is seen. The largest group by far I have ever seen was a cluster of young plants that numbered a few dozen and were widely dispersed in an area where a rocky landslide had destroyed almost every other plant. It appeared like the colonization 
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