When mighty forest giants fall

On May 4 I was hiking in the El Yunque forest.  In my hike came across two large trees that had fallen.   One was largely intact, the other had fallen on a road and had been cut in pieces. When I saw them I could not help thinking of what happened when an ancient Chinese emperors died.  When the emperor died, a number of servants and other people were sacrificed to accompany the emperor in his afterlife.  In the case of these trees, they were laden with epiphytic orchids which face certain death in the forest floor.  In the tree that fell in an open area most orchids died from sunburn.  In the one that fell in a shady spot, the orchids are still alive but will eventually die when the trunk rots away,  There were Lepanthes, Pleurothallis, Ornithidium, Jaquiniella, Epidendrum as well as others I could not ID.  I didn't collect any of them, the forest is in a protected area and collection is forbidden.  Also these orchids live in a habitat that provides very, very high humidity along with brisk air movement, this is not a combination that the average orchid grower can easily provide.

A Lepanthes stem, blooming without having its leaf

This is how an inflorescence of a Lepanthes woodburyana looks

A stem, producing flowers without a leaf.  I had never seen this in Lepanthes 

I have seen many Lepanthes woodburyana in el Yunque forest.  But it is the first time I have seen a stem producing flowers without the having a leaf.  Interestingly it is the first time I have ever taken a photo of a Lepanthes from the back of the flower.

Lepanthes rupestris, Stimson 1970, "in situ" growing on very slippery boulders by a mountain stream

These tiny orchids grow on boulders on the side of mountain streams in the high reaches of Sierra de Luquillo.  The plants are small and easily missed.  The flowers are so small most people are oblivious to their presence.  The boulders where these orchids grow are hideously slippery, moving among them demands supreme care and a constante state of alertness.  Any slip can result in a painful fall at best and broken bones at worst.  Given that these orchids are inconspicuous and in a habitat inimical to human presence, the result is that they are fairly common even in places that humans frequent.  

Taking good macro photos of them is not easy since there is no flat surface anywhere to put a tripod.  Also you have to be careful to keep a good balance among the boulders at the same time that you are taking the photos, something that is not easy if you are handling a 100 mm lens, trying to figure out what is the best exposure and hanging for dear life from the rocks themselves to avoid falling.

On top of all that you need to be alert for flash floods caused by rain far away upstream.  These have killed many a distracted bather in these mountain streams.  Happily the day I visited this particular stream, the place was not as soping wet as usual and I could move among the boulders with relative safety.

Lepanthes woodburyana one of the commonest endemic Lepanthes

Lepanthes woodburyana

Sierra palm forest/elfin forest transcition area, many Lepanthes are found here.  The ground is from wet to soping wet year round.  The view is toward Pico del Este

Sometimes the inflorescence is over the top of the leaf instead of under it which is the norm.

This plant was found in the Sierra Palm forest

Two inflorescences plus one seed capsule





A plant at a local orchid show, a rare sight indeed.  The many stems and flowers on the plant speak of a skilled and knowledgeable grower.

Lepanthes woodburyana is one of the most common Lepanthes species I have seen in El Yunque forest. They can be found growing in tree trunks, twigs and riverside boulders. They seem to do best in areas where the environmental humidity remains consistently high year round such as the margins of rivers and creeks. It might be a startling thought that humidity could be low in such a place as a rainforest but I have had the experience of visiting the forest at a time when a dry period has lingered long enough for the moss in the trunks of trees to become bone dry. I suspect that these plants are vulnerable to the spells of dry weather and low humidity that sometimes happen even in the depths of the rainforest. The reason I think these plants are vulnerable to spells of unfavorable weather is because over the years I have seen groups and colonies of these plants suddenly disappear from places where they were common and easy to find. At first I was alarmed when a group of plants could not be found and even thought that someone in the orchid hobby had collected them. But when plants disappeared from sites where the possibility of them having been collected was unlikely in the extreme I discarded this possibility. Also the number of orchid growers that grow Lepanthes in the island of PR is so vanishingly small that I have yet to see a single native Lepanthes in cultivation in the collections of any of the many orchidists that I know personally. However they do show up, on rare ocassions, at orchid shows. In fact if you ask local orchidists about Lepanthes many will be unfamiliar with them and of the remainder that do know them most would hardly consider them a subject fit for cultivation. For most orchid growers in PR growing orchids means keeping large flowered Classic Cattleyas, in this light Lepanthes, and many other tiny flowered genera have flowers that are simply too insignificant to bother with.

Because of this unpopularity the local Lepanthes are happily left alone in the wild and to survive or die on their own terms and according to the vagrancies of the seasons and the climate. My biggest difficulty with the local Lepanthes is the lack of photos of plants whose identity has been certified by a botanical authority. Even with the botanical descriptions, the taxonomic keys and line drawings are a challenge for an amateur, it can be difficult to determine the ID of a plant without a color drawing or photo.

There are several Lepanthes species in PR and perhaps with a single exception, they are not endangered or particularly rare in their favored habitats. They can be easily found in the wild habitat but you will have to bring a magnifying glass to really enjoy their beauty. They are best left in their native haunts because they will not tolerate even slight neglect in cultivation. A Cattleya can easily endure two weeks without watering with no ill consequences. Lepanthes will die the moment they desiccate which can happen in less than a week during particularly windy spell in the dry season or at the height of the summer when temperatures are at their yearly peak.

Lepanthes caritensis a rare Puerto Rican endemic orchid

Lepanthes caritensis

This orchid is rarely seen and even less often photographed.   Found only in particular mountains of the east of Puerto Rico this orchid is quite tiny and often overlook.  At one time they were thought to ocurr in a very restricted area where only 196 individuals were known to ocurr.  Amazingly half of the plants of the species were found in a single tree!  But it now appears to have a wider distribution than was realized.  I found a few plants but sadly after hurricane Earl thinned the canopy in the area where they grew they dissapeared.   Hopefully one day I will find more plants to photograph.  This plant is not in circulation in the orchid growing circles, I know of just a single plant in captivity.  The photo I saw of the plant is apparently being cared by a particularly skilled orchidist as shows it thriving under cultivation.  However I ask you not to remove these plants from the wild as keeping them healthy and alive away from their natural habitat is not and endeavour for the casual orchidist and most likely will result in the death of the plant.