Oncidium altissimum [Jacq.] Swartz 1800, a close up of a flower from a plant growing in the Rio Abajo forest, Puerto Rico.

This orchid was one of the commonest epiphytic orchid in the Rio Abajo forest, Arecibo, Puerto Rico.  However it is unclear how many plants survived hurricane Maria.  Most plants grew high up the trees in branches that were close to the canopy, where they could get dappled sunlight.   After the hurricane, the plants that remained on the trees were severely sunburned because without the canopy to filter the sun, they were exposed all day to the harsh strength of the the tropical sun.  Unfortunately so many trees were broken, brought down or grievously damaged that checking on how the plants in the forest are doing right now would be a difficult and dangerous thing to do.  Hopefully in the future I will be able to check on how the plants that I had observed fared after the hurricane.

Oncidium cebolleta (Jacq.) Sw. 1800

I saw this orchid growing in an airy and sunny location in a garden near Isabela in the north coast of Puerto Rico.  Although it is a plant that does well in the hot and humid conditions of the coast of Puerto Rico, it seems to be rare in cultivation.  This is the only plant I have ever seen of this species in our Island.

Oncidium sphacelatum Lindl. 1841

This orchid is one of one of the easiest orchids to grow in the Caribbean.  It grows vigorously in well cared for but it is forgiving of neglect.  The plant in the photo above started as a two pseudobulb division on top of a terracota pot.  Eventually it totally engulfed the pot with its root mass and grew over, around and under it.

Unfortunately this particular clone doesn't produce the large flower filled inflorescences that other clones can produce.  It produces many short ones.  The flowers are nice enough although a bit on the small side, but perhaps I am prejudiced by the many larger flowered modern Oncidium hybrids.

This particular plant will grow happily tied up to a tree even when it receives absolutely no care.  However to get the best out of this species, you need to water it regularly, fertilize it frequently when it is producing its pseudobulbs and you have to make sure it get the proper amount of light to grow well,. This is not a plant for shady spots, although it will grow and bloom there, it will not perform its best.

The thieves orchids

When I was a college student, back in the early eighties, I had a small collection of orchids.  I would spend the week in the town where the university was and come back to my hometown on weekends to take care of my orchids.  My mother would water the plants during the week if it was exceptionally dry but outside that,  she didn't pay much attention to them because she was not really interested in orchids.

One Friday, when I arrived home I went into the shade house only to find someone had broken in.  Only one plant was stolen, a Phalaenopsis aphrodite that was in full bloom.  I was really, really angry and upset.  At that time those orchids were quite rate locally and pretty difficult to get.  It was clear, from the size of the hole on the side of the greenhouse, that the thief had been a child.   I inquired among the neighbors, no, not the adults, the children, they were the ones that really knew everything since they were free range children (is that still a thing nowadays? but, I digress).  But no one had seen anything.   I was unspeakably angry but there was nothing I could do.

I repaired the shadehouse, reinforced the sides so that nobody could make a hole in them and, as I was doing that, pondered on what to do.  The first thing I did was put out some bait.  The bait were some pieces of Oncidium sphacelatum.  They were hung from the sides of the shadehouse in spots where they could be easily reached.  But I decided that this was not enough to appease my thirst for revenge.  Whenever a plant became virused, pest covered or had lost all their roots and capacity to grow or bloom I would take them out of the shadehouse and hang them in the trees around the garden.

I called these plants, the thieves orchids.  To me they were an early warning system in case there was someone was stealing plants in the area.   I an addition I had pleasant, calming, fantasies of the stolen orchids infecting all the other plants in the collection of whoever brought them with all manner of loathsome diseases.  I admit this was very vicious thing to do, but I was young and angry,  nevertheless I still think there is a specially hot place in hell for people that buy stolen orchids.

Contrary to expectations, no orchid was ever again stolen from my garden.  As the years passed by the thieves orchids met a variety of fates.  Some departed for the great, happy, terracota pot in the sky.  Others were given to particularly masochistic people that fully believed they could be cured, and in some cases they were indeed cured.  Lastly, a few were cured by the judicious application of chemical agents and were welcomed back into the shadehouse.

In due time I became less wary and things in my garden returned to their usual blissful tranquility, except for that time a relative decided that by hook or crook, she would get a piece of my huge specimen plant of Myrmecophya humboltii, but that is another story.

An orchid story: The Oncidium altissimum that would not bloom

When I was a college student, I was going to attend some athletic events in the capital city of Puerto Rico. I lived at several hours driving distance from the capital, so a friend invited me to stay at his house which is near where the events were going to take place, so I would not have to do a long drive.  It was the first time I had visited my friend's house.  His mother knew that I cultivated orchids and asked me to take a look at one of her plants.  She told me that even thought quite large and healthy,  inexplicably, it would not bloom.

When I looked at her orchid I was impressed, the plant was easily three feet across and had a large number of adult sized and quite fat pseudobulbs.  The plant was in excellent condition and free of pests.  I was baffled, a plant of such size in the wild should have been full of the remains of old flowering stems, which in this species can reach ten feet long.  On her plant there was no evidence that the plant had ever bloomed.

I started asking her questions and soon realized she had no idea how the flowers of the plant looked.  Actually she knew very little about the plant, only that it was an orchid, and that was that.    I could not find anything wrong with the plant or with the care she was giving it.   Then she told me that she had one problem with the plant.  There were some vine seedlings that kept invading her plant and growing on the media.  She had to continually cut them, but to no avail, they, very stubbornly, kept invading her plant in spite of her ruthless campaign against them.

When she said that, I asked her to show me from where the pesky vines would grow.  She pointed me to the bases of the pseudobulbs.  She thought that inflorescences were invading weeds!!  She didn't recognize the inflorescences of the Oncidium because she know nothing about the plant and because the inflorescences grow quite a bit before they produce the branches where the flowers are.   She had spent years cutting the inflorescences.  You might be surprised that such an absurd thing could happen, but this happened in the ancient times before the Internet, when information sources about orchids in Puerto Rico were few and you had to go to a mayor library to get even basic information on common types.

I told her about the inflorescences and how to tie them so that they would show their best.  I had to do this because the plant was growing in a large pot in the ground in an inside garden.   Eventually. the plant finally bloomed with many inflorescences to everyone's delight.

Oncidium altissimum [Jacq.] Swartz 1800, with an unusual root basket.

This orchid is found in the wild in Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands and in several islands of the lesser Antilles.  In Puerto Rico it is widespread except for the dry regions (Ackerman 2014).  I live in a forest near the town of Arecibo,  Puerto Rico.  When I hike through the forest I often see this species growing high up in the trunks of trees.  However from time to time I find seedlings growing in less sturdy locations.

In the case of this plant, it was growing in a relatively slender branch.  As the orchid grew in size it started building its root basket.  Root baskets in orchids trap leaves and organic matter.  Each new growth adds its roots to the basket.  The moisture and nutrients caught in the root basket helps the plant survive and produce new growths.

The part of the branch where the orchid was growing died and started decomposing, but because it was covered with orchid roots it didn't fall from the tree right away.  Since the decaying part of the branch no longer had the structural integrity to support the weight of the orchid, the plant found itself hanging upside down, still attached to the tree by its network of roots.  The new growth grew in the opposite direction of the older pseudobulbs, which now were hanging upside down.  The new pseudobulb produced roots that grew in exactly the opposite direction of the old ones.  The result is the unusual root basket you see in the photo.

Eventually, the roots of the orchid that were attached to the still living parts of the branch decayed and the orchid fell to the ground after a particularly windy storm.  I found the plant by the roadside.  I took the plant to my garden to observe how it will grow now that the only support it has is its own roots.

Ackerman, James. D. 2014. Orchid Flora of the Greater Antilles

An abandoned orchid collection, observations on how some of the orchids have fared when neglected for a few years.

I must confess that there are few things that I find more poignant than an abandoned orchid collection.  Why orchids are abandoned?  Sometimes the owner basically losses interest in caring for the plants (I know, I know, it strains credulity, but it happens).  Other times, the hobbyist dies and the descendants, stop caring for the plants but won’t sell them because of their sentimental value.    In yet other instances, perhaps the saddest cases, the grower cannot care for them any longer and they simply lay forgotten.

A friend, who has never grown orchids, asked me for help in dealing with some orchids that had been given to him by an elderly relative.    The orchids had not received any care for three or four years I and was intrigued by the opportunity to see how orchids survive when they are left to their own devices.     When I hike in local forests, sometimes I find the vestiges of human habitation.  Most of the time all that remains is the stone stairs that were traditionally set at the front door of the house, but on occasion, you can also find a few houseplants still growing where they were planted.    In all my hikes I have found orchids only a single time.  In the highest parts of El Yunque rainforest, in some tree ferns in front of the remains of an abandoned house there were a Phalaenopsis and two Cattleyas.  None were doing well mainly due to being planted in spots that were too shady for them.  I didn’t remove the plants, the next time I returned someone had cut the tree ferns, probably to take the plants.

The orchids that were given to my friend were kept under the shade of a banyan that even though quite large did allow a modest amount of light to reach the orchids.  The plants were on plastic and metal baskets hanging from a short supporting structure made out of long metal tubes.  Because nobody had walked in the area for a long time, an understory of bushes and low plants had developed under the orchids and sometimes over the orchids, reducing the light reaching the plants even more.  Most of the orchids had the deep green color of plants growing under low light.  Of a collection that originally probably numbered close to forty plants, most were alive.  I started checking them plant by plant.

A Cymbidium, either aloifolium or findlaysonianum, had shattered its plastic basket with its roots and was hanging by a single piece of wire threaded through the center of its root ball.   This orchid was stunted and there was no indication it had bloomed in many years.     Even though it is stunted the Cymbidium  condition is good enough that a few years of the right care could help it produce full sized pseudobulbs that would bloom.

The Dendrobium moschatum was in excellent shape. It was in a basket that was completely filled with its roots.  It had four to five feet long canes that had the remains of recent inflorescences.  The area around the Den. moschatum was littered with older decayed canes and keikis (baby plants produced on the canes and inflorescences of many orchids) it had dropped to the ground.  The only thing this plant needed was to move it (very carefully to avoid sunburn) to a sunnier spot.  The keikis of this plant were gathered to be potted individually.

The base of the stems of Dendrobium fimbriatum var. occulatum had rotted away and its basket lay empty.   However, around it, and on other pots, and on the ground, there were the sections of canes that were still alive and had keikis on them.   We gathered the keikis to put them in a basket.

The Dendrobium nobile had also mostly died, but piece of old canes with keikis on them were hanging from the decaying remains of dead canes that were still attached to the basket.  There were a few large keikis that would respond fairly fast to care, but also many smaller ones whose survival, due to they being so tiny, was problematic unless they received particularly good care.

A good sized plant of Eria javanica was growing well but there were no remains of inflorescences from previous years.   Given the condition of the plant, all that is needed to get is blooming  is moving it to a sunnier spot and giving it good care in the next growing season.

In a single basket there were planted,  Cattleya skinneri, Schomburgkia tibicinis and an unidentifiable Miltonia hybrid.  The Catt. skinneri was a mass of dwarf pseudobulbs that apparently had managed at some time to produce inflorescences of two to three flowers.  All the Catt. skinneri pseudobulbs were growing in the side of the basket.  The Schomburgkia tibicinis had been put inside the basket,  the plant had produced a number pseudobulbs that had met the side of the basket when they were developing and therefore had become twisted and misshapen, only a single bulb had the normal shape for this species.  The Schomburgkia was partly buried in a mass of wet decaying tree fern, a startling sight since one would think that situation would had caused the pseudobulbs of this species to succumb to rot in a short time.   The Miltonia hybrid was growing on top of the material and was easily removed.    Most of the plastic basket was cut away but about a third of it was so enmeshed on the roots of the orchids that could not be removed without severe harm to the plants.  It was decided to let the plants together for the time being and to remove them at a later time when the plants condition were improved and they could handle the trauma to the roots better.  The plants were moved to start to acclimatize them to sunnier conditions.

A Cattleya bowingiana seemed to be in a fairly good shape but the fact that whoever had potted many of the orchids had a thing for burying the bases of the pseudobulbs made it difficult to ascertain the condition of the vegetative buds at the base of the pseudobulbs.    Since digging in the material might have damaged the roots of a weakened plant it was decided to wait and see if new growth would pop up from the media.

Two large bifoliate Cattleya hybrids were in very good shape, but had not bloomed recently.  Both had escaped the confines of the baskets and were growing on the sides with stems outside the baskets but their roots in the media.  All these plants needed to bloom was good light and a single growing season with the right amount of fertilizer and water.

A very small Phalaenopsis was found hanging in the air by two long roots from a piece of tree fern that was on top of one of the hybrid bifoliate Cattleyas.  Intriguingly, even though this plant only had two leaves, the largest of which is all of three inches long, it has an inflorescence developing.  The Phalaenopsis was removed from the tree fern piece to be planted in pot.

A Prosthechea cochleata was in perfect condition and would surely bloom if given more sun.  A Dendrobium anosmum, dwarfed and in poor condition was obviously on its last legs.    There was a number of small unifoliate Cattleyas with no id which had seen better times.    There were also some Oncidium plants that were likely Onc. Sphacelatum.  A few plants that were obviously derived from Brazilian Miltonias were found, but since none had flowers, it was impossible to have an idea of what exactly they were. 

We decided to work first with those who were in the poorer conditions and those that were in such good shape that they would have been blooming but for want of adequate light.  The ones in bad shape were repotted and moved to a shade house.  The ones that were in the best condition were started in the slow process of acclimating them to their optimal level of light exposure.

In this particular case neglect was not the main cause of death of the orchids since the climate in the area where they are located, the mountainous interior of the island of Puerto Rico, is favorable to their survival.  The main threat to the plants were the competition from ferns that invaded their pots and vines that would shade them to such an extent as to cause their deaths from lack of light.  Rooting media on the pots didn’t appear to have caused any deaths.  Insect pests were not found to be a significant problem as only two plants were infested with brown scale and only one large plant of a Cattleya hybrid had a single colony of whitefly.  Although small amounts of damage could be found in almost all plant stems and their leaves, the plant collection as had endured neglect remarkably well.  

Oncidium Heaven Scent 'Sweet Baby', a fragrant Oncidium

This hybrid is similar to Oncidium Sharry Baby "Sweet Fragrance'.  However the inflorescences are shorter, and more densely flowered, at least in the plants I have seen.  The flowers have the same  fragrance, the main difference is in the color of the flowers.

Wilsonara Aloha Sparks 'Ruby eyes'

Odontoglossum halli Lindley 1837, in Ecuador

I saw this plant in the orchid house of the Botanical Garden of Quito, Ecuador.  It is found in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.  This species is part of the Epidendroides group inside the group of orchids related to Oncidium.¹   There were plants of this species inside and outside the orchid house.  The plant growing outside in the trunk of a tree, growing under shade had more flowers.  The plant growing inside the orchid house was sitting in the ground and exposed to a much higher level of light.    The flowers of the two plants I photographed were subtly different, the one outside had lips that were not flat, the one in the orchid house had a flat lip, the marking and the coloring of the flowers were also slightly different.

  

¹Zelenko H. et al. 2002.  Orchids, The pictorial encyclopedia of Oncidium

Oncidium Sharry Baby 'Sweet Fragrance'

This Oncidium hybrid has many virtues, it is relatively easy to grow, can be forgiving of neglect and if well cared for, it can produce large inflorescences of deliciously fragrant flowers that produce a powerful chocolate fragrance.  A single large mature pseudobulb can produce two inflorescences at the same time and those can carry dozens of flowers.  I have read that some people don't like the leaves of this orchid because they are not the smooth green of other Oncidium but can be covered with tiny blemishes, but to me this is a minor defect.  The flowers are so nice that it is easy to overlook the leaves.  Best of all mature plants can be found in many places from specialist orchid vendors to department stores.  Good sized and well bloomed plants can often be obtained at reasonable prices.

How I cultivate this plant:

Light:  Young plants get bright shade, adult plants get a few hours of sun in the morning but are sheltered from the harsh midday sunlight.  Giving the plants as much light as they can stand without burning has given me the best results.

Watering:  Almost every day when the plant is producing its pseudobulbs, particularly the phase where the pseudobulb is increasing in size.

Fertilizer:  In every watering when the plant is producing new growths.  No fertilizer when it is blooming or not growing.

Potting media: It seems to grow equaly well in bark, tree fern and coconut husk pieces. 

Temperature: Summer: 85F day, 75F night, winter 75F day, 65F night.

An Oncidium species from the heteranthum group, maybe orthotis

I found this peculiar orchid in a fallen branch by the roadside on the area of Mindo, Ecuador.  In the heteranthum group of Oncidium the inflorescences usually have many aborted flowers, in some species only the flower at the very tip of the inflorescence develops normally.  In the case of this orchid, the plant producing the inflorescence was quite small and the inflorescence had only a single fully developed flower.    I have not seen these plants in cultivation locally.  I have tried to find the identity of this plant but so far have not found a clear match.  The flowers are reminiscent of the flowers of Oncidium orthotis, a member of the heteranthum group.  Unfortunately the illustrations I have seen are not good enough for a definite determination of the identity of this orchid.

An Oncidium species from the heteranthum group, maybe orthotis

Cyrtochilum murinum growing in a tree in the Quito Botanical Garden, Ecuador

A newly opened flower to the right and a mature one to the left

I saw this orchid in the botanical garden of the city of Quito, Ecuador.  This orchid was growing as an epiphyte on a large tree.  The plant was growing at a height of about ten feet in the trunk of the tree.  The inflorescence was five or six feet long and reached down just enough to allow me to photograph the flowers near the tip.  In the Quito area temperatures vary between 45 F at night to 75 during the day.  There are no seasons and this temperature regime stays the same year round.  In the photo, in the right side, you can see a flower that has just opened.  This flower shows very well the color and shape of the floral parts.  In the mature flower the floral segments are strongly reflexed toward the back as can be seen in the flower on the left side of the photo.

Cyrtochilum serratum an orchid from Ecuador

I first saw this orchid in a greenhouse in Quito Botanical Gardens.  But later I saw it growing in cultivation near Centro del Mundo and in Mindo.  The plant seems to be a vigorous grower and all the plants I saw had inflorescences.  The fact that I saw no seedlings anywhere I went makes me think that the plants were taken from the wild and planted in the places where I saw them.  All the plants I saw were adults.  The inflorescences are very long. I saw one that was about nine feet long and had several short branches along its lenght.  The flowers seem to be produced continuously along the inflorescence, all the inflorescences I saw had only a few flowers on them, near the tip of the inflorescence.  I saw a plant tied to a bamboo pole about eight feet up from the ground, its inflorescence had been trained along the lenght of the bamboo pole so that people could enjoy the flowers at eye level.  This plant is a cool grower from the Andes where it grows at elevation that can surpass the 9,000 feet.  This means that it is wholly unsuited for cultivation at sea level in hot locales.  It comes from western Ecuador and Peru.

Oncidium altissimum, a native orchid with very long inflorescences and small yellow flowersl

Around the base of the lip there are some sharp pointed protuberances that form two groups of five
 around a central "tooth" 

A slightly different colored flower, however the flash and a degree of back lighting accentuate the difference with the flower on the top photo

The inflorescence is branched among most of its lenght, but the tip has two rows of flowers

A plant blooming in the wild, notice the many old inflorescences

This bottom view of a wild plant shows the root basket

These plants were attached to the trunk of a large Teak tree.  They bloomed riotously but due to the flaky nature of the bark of the teak tree they eventually lost their grip and fell.  Note the many old inflorescences.

Oncidium altissimum is an orchid whose geographical distribution includes Puerto Rico and the lesser Antilles.  In favorable habitats its relatively common and sometimes large specimen plants can be found growing on the trunks of tall trees.  I have seen this plant in the forests of the Northern part of Puerto Rico and into the mountainous interior of the Island.   When I started learning about orchids there were few orchid books that covered the orchids of Puerto Rico, the ones that were available were taxonomic treatises that were difficult to digest due to the obscure taxonomic terms and my own lack of familiarity with the characteristics of the orchids.  For years I didn’t know if the yellow flowered Oncidium that I saw in the forest was Onc. altissimun, Onc. wydleri or Onc. baueri.    Eventually this question was settled and with the books on orchids of Puerto Rico authored by Ackermann learning about the local orchid became much easier.

 This orchid is remarkably indiscriminate about its growing substrate.  I have seen it growing on rocks, on the leaf litter of a gravelly slope, on small understory trees and on the top branches of the largest forest trees.  There is however one thing that this species doesn’t tolerate and that is deep shade.  I recall finding a plant in 1999 in the Rio Abajo forest that was blooming gloriously and growing with great vigor because hurricane Georges had opened the canopy over its growing spot and it was getting lots of sunshine.  But as the forest canopy healed and the amount of light began to diminish the plant started weakening and dying.  Now in 2011 what remain of the huge plant are a few small scattered pseudobulbs that are bidding their time until the canopy opens again.

Unlike most Puerto Rican orchids Onc. antissimun makes itself quite a home in captivity and will thrive as long as a few precautions are taken that are generally the same as one would use with any other epiphytic orchid.  This orchid is intolerant of decayed, anoxic, tightly packed media, it needs an airy mix and under my care has accepted a wide variety of growing media such as coconut, bark and stones.   When the new growth has achieved a few inches in height the plant will start producing many slender roots that will grip the media and literally engulf it in a mass of roots.  This tendency to produce a plethora of roots results in the wild in the formation of a root basket that surrounds the trunk or branch of the tree that hosts the orchid.  Sometimes these roots baskets can become large, but this can spell the doom of the plant, as the new pseudobulbs become separated from the trunk and more attached to the root basket the new roots may not reach all the way to the trunk.  The result is that if the part of the root basket that is in contact with the trunk decays a portion, or most of the orchid might fall from the tree to the forest floor.   It is not rare, if a storm hits Puerto Rico during the hurricane season, to find pieces of this orchid in the forest floor along with branches and other debris.

I no longer grow this plant because it would be like going to the bother of having a refrigerator in Antartica.  They are everywhere in Rio Abajo and many plants can be seen growing in the trees that surround my house.  You can also see this orchid in the gardens of local people where they grow quite well.   One of the most distinctive characteristics of this orchid is the length of its inflorescences, they can reach a length of ten feet although most are shorter than this.  A mature plant often has many old inflorescences in various stages of decay hanging from it.  The pseudobulbs can reach six inches tall in the largest and most vigorous specimens.

This plant is rarely seen in orchid shows, it makes its appearance mainly when someone makes a educative exhibition that features native orchids.  This orchid was relatively common in orchid collection in previous decades but it has been totally superseded in the local orchid grower tastes by new hybrids that feature much larger flowers with shorter and denser displays of flowers.  As far as I know it is not subjected to systematic collection in the wild although it is not rare for visitors to the forest to carry home plants found fallen in the forest floor, but his doesn’t seem to make a dent in the wild populations.

I have an interesting anecdote about this orchid.  When I was in college I visited the home of a fellow student that lived in the metropolitan area.  His mother was proud of her plant collection and we spent some time in the garden talking about her plants.  As we walked through the garden she pointed to me an orchid and declared it her greatest disappointment, in spite of much fussing and devoted care the plant had never produced a single flower.  The said plant was an Onc. altissimum specimen about two feet across with dozens of large pseudobulbs.  Mystified by her assertion I examined the plant and to my surprise found the remains of inflorescences in practically every bulb.  Nevertheless, she insisted the plant had never bloomed.  Baffled I asked her if she had noticed the inflorescences, she answered that yes, she had waged a continuous battle against the vines that kept invading the pot of her precious orchid.  She thought the inflorescences were the expression of an invading weedy vine!  No wonder she had never seen a flower!  I educated her about the plant and next year she enjoyed a massive blooming showfrom her plant as many years of frustration was poured on an exceptional flower display.

The plants in Rio Abajo bloom in the early summer around June.  In spite of the many plants that bloom together seed capsules are not common and I have yet to find one in the many wild plants I have found in the wild.  It is said that these plant are pollinated by bees but I have yet to see any bee visit or even hang around the flowers.  The proposed method for pollination for these orchids is called pseudoantagonism.  The proposed mechanism for pollination is that when aggressive territorial bees see the flowers, they attack the flowers head on, taking them for territorial rivals.  In the process of this attacks the pollinia of the flowers is transferred from flower to flower.

Tolumnia (Oncidium) variegata, a native orchid locally known as angel of the coffee plantation

Tolumnia variegata from Rio Abajo

Note the large and prominent callus at the center of the flower

Two flowers from a Rio Abajo plant

This fan of four leaves produced an inflorescence that is astonishly disproportionate to the size of the plant.  It can be seen the lower two pictures.  This is a Rio Abajo plant.

The several feet long inflorescence carried the flowers high over the host bush

Tolumnia hybrid

Tolumnia hybrid

The previous Tolumnia hybrid flower produced after the plant was grown in high light conditions in my garden

A Rodricidium hybrid that has Tolumnia in his ancestry

This little orchid is among the most widespread species of orchid native of the island of Puerto Rico.   I have seen it in many places in the island, from the moist forests of the Northern part of the Karst area to the dry scrub in the south west.   I have also seen this orchid in the island of Hispaniola in Santo Domingo.  The carefully manicured shrubs in the area of the Japanese Garden in the world famous Jardin Botanico of the capital of Santo Domingo have in their branches a dense population of this orchid.  The density of plants I saw among the branches of some of the shrubs in the Japanese Garden is among the greatest I have seen in any epiphytic orchid, the plants were tiny, had four fat and short leaves and were blooming abundantly at the time of my visit.  I have also seen this plant in coffee plantations that are at middle elevations in the central mountainous area of Puerto Rico as well as in coastal forest that is still reasonably intact.

This plant has an equitant arrangement of the leaves, this means the leaves are arranged in a flattened fan shape.  One of the peculiarities of this species is that plant size varies wildly even in areas where you would think all plants would be closely related.  In an area of less than one acre in the forest of Rio Abajo in Puerto Rico you can find small plants with four short and thick leaves that produce two of three flowers and larger plants with longer leaves that produce disproportionally huge inflorescences with dozens of flowers.  The largest plant of this species that I have ever seen was growing in the Guanica dry forest.  I saw it when I was walking through a small ravine in the forest where conditions were slightly moister than in the surrounding forest.  Growing in the understory, among the slender branches of a tall bush the plant I saw had long and slender leaves about four or five inches long.  The plant was growing with its roots spreading in the air in all directions, unattached to anything, the plant was tangled in the branches by its long stolon which joined the newest fan with the remains of older leave fans.  It could have been that the plant had fallen from a high branch, gotten tangled in the low branches and had kept growing unfazed by its new circumstances.

But no matter the size and shape of the leaves the flowers of all the plants are nearly identical.  There some plants that have a pronounced lilac coloring in the lip and floral segments, but I have seen those only in photos, I have never seen one of this type growing in the wild.  The flowers are constant in size with the flowers produced by the tiniest plants being only slightly smaller than those produced by the largest ones.

I have seen plants of this species in bloom in March sometimes in good numbers in favorable habitats.  However they can be common in highly modified habitats such coffee plantations and I have found from time to time plants growing in trees and bushes in urban areas and even in a tree in the central plaza of a small town.

People often collect these plants and they are seen from time to time at local orchid shows with relative frequency. Any time somebody makes a display of native orchids in an orchid show that falls on their blooming season this orchid is almost sure to be a present.  Puzzlingly, in spite of this being a common orchid, it seems few people are adept at keeping them alive in a long term basis.  The very few that I have found to be successful with this orchid, were growing them in their native haunts in conditions that closely resemble what they experience in nature.  I have observed a few plants growing in the wild and the lifespan seems to be relatively short.  None of the plants I have observed lasted more than five years from the time I found them and some disappeared after only two years of blooming activity.

Tolumnia hybrids made with other species of Tolumnia are highly valued by orchid growers and are relatively inexpensive and easy to find.  The flowers of the hybrids are often vividly colored and sometime feature lurid color combinations arranged in stripes and spots in ways seldom seen in other similarly sized flowers.

I have kept many hybrids of Tolumnia and a few have survived for a significant period of time under my care.  All have eventually died, mainly of root loss but also from what appears to be fungal/bacterial infections.  My guess is that there is a key feature of their habitat that I have failed to replicate in a consistent manner.  Of those the plants growing in the wild that I had have the opportunity to observe over several years, the plants that survive the longest are those growing among the leaves of the shrubs in the top part of the shrub where they get bright light filtered through the leaves most of the day and probably a bit of full sun at midday when sunlight is striking the shrubs at its most vertical.   I suspect that the leaves of the host shrubs also provide a microclimate of higher environmental humidity that insulates the plants against desiccation.

Few orchidists locally cultivate this species, probably because it is just too drab when compared with the hybrids and the fact that they are neither prestigiously rare nor difficult to replace.  Most of those that keep these orchids do so by dint of cutting a branch of the shrub tree where they are growing in the wild and bringing it into their collections.  Many of the plants collected this way survive happily, at least for a time, in captivity.

If you want to try to grow this plant in the Island of Puerto Rico I would advice to grow it inside a leafy bush that still allows a significant amount of light to sift through its leaves.  A particularly good host is the Higuera tree.  But please don’t go stripping our State Forests of this orchids, there are probably plenty growing in private lands and in coffee plantations.  Owners of coffee plantations have been known to rip out these plants from the coffee bushes in the mistaken belief that they are parasitic and drain the coffee bush of vigor.

Oncidium meirax, now Cyrtochilum meirax

Ondium meirax, an orchid native of Puerto Rico, now known as Cyrtochilum meirax

Plant growing in situ

The Sierra Palm forest, habitat of this orchid

Dona Juana waterfall, in the habitat of this orchid

I spent December 12, 13 and 14 of 2006, driving around the mountainous interior of the island of Puerto Rico. I am lucky enough to have a friend, J. Alvarez that doesn’t mind driving meanwhile I keep an eye out for orchids. I saw a great many plants, mostly Epidendrum, almost all without flowers. Wiggling through a heavily forested section of Palm forest I was lucky enough to find a fallen branch with some Oncidium plants in flower and in fruit. It is not often that I see these plants at all let alone in bloom. In my experience plants that hail from the Sierra Palm forest or the higher Elfin forest are doomed to die when cultivated in the lowland environment in Puerto Rico, they are best left in place. The plants die because the average grower in PR lacks the necessary equipment to provide the proper environment for these cloud forest ephiphytes.The Oncidium was found at an altitude of more than 3,500 feet in one of the highest peaks of the island of PR. The tree that harbored the plants was loaded with ephiphytes of all kinds as well as many plants of this Oncidium. The plants are in little danger of being collected due to the fact that the tree that harbors them grows alongside a dizzying high cliff. Reaching even the lowest branch means risking life and limb. Fortunately a broken branch was caught in a tangle of vines that prevented it from falling into oblivion. The plant was photographed in situ. Almost all plants had fruits and a few had flowers. The plants are tiny and easily confused with seedlings of the much more common Oncidium altissimun. The plants pseudobulbs and all are at most three to four inches tall. The inflorescenses are about three to four inches long. The plants are not conspicuous and the flowers are small and easily missed if you are not familiar with these orchids. The branch was sopping wet and mostly rotted, its surface loaded with fungi and sundry ephiphytes. No plants were seen in any of the trees that were near the host tree or in the palms. My books say this plant is Oncidium meirax.The area where the plant was found receives constant and precipitation almost year round in the form of rain, drizzle, and fog. The area where the plant was found is dominated by Sierra palm, with possibly thousands of palms growing together in dense strands. I kept to the edge of the forest because the ground was so slippery that there was the constant threat of falling. Given the steep mountain sides and the ubiquitous rocks I had to thread exceedingly carefully around the tree roots. Here are some of my observations.

Temperature: It can range from the high eighties in the middle of the day in the peak of summer to the middle fifties at night in the peak of winter. When I have visited the forest the temperatures have fluctuated between 65F and 80F.

Substrate: Sopping wet wood full of all manner of fungi and roots and other ephiphytes. Everything in the area was dripping water when I visited the spot.

Lightning: Very variable often going from one extreme of the spectrum to the other in manner of minutes. The plants are protected from the worst of it by the canopy of leaves of the host tree but since some of the plants I saw were growing high on the tree it is probable they are subjected to a constantly changing level of light exposure that went from very harsh direct sunlight to low diffused light when fog envelopes the forest.

Watering: It rains constantly, the area I visited probably get more than 160 inches of rain a year. Except for a few weeks during the dry season, it is probable these plants are drenched almost round the clock day in and day out.Humidity: 100% at night almost every night of the year. Probably close to 100% during the day for most of the year.Blooming: I found a few plants with flowers, I don’t know if this is this plant flowering season.The place was windy during my visit, it is clear from the shape of the trees that the area can get high winds with some regularity.