Epidendrum , ackermanii Hagsater 2004, formerly known as Epidendrum secundum from Puerto RIco

A plant from Maricao

Side view of the callus of the lip

Front view of the lip

The inflorescence of a plant from Maricao

Cultivated plant, Aguadilla, note that the lip shape and callus are diffent from
 ackermanii, the provenance of this plat is unknown

Plants growing in a landslide, note the purplish color and the small size.

Very small plants blooming 

Epidendrum secundum?  This plant is from Ecuador, growing in great numbers in the roadaside
in the road from Quito to Mindo.

Epidendrum ackermanii 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 island¹ .  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 once, all the other time 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 by the vigor of the plant, larger plants produce both larger flowers and more of them.  But in general the inflorescences of ackermanii are quite small and relatively few flowered when compared with plants identified as secundum 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 had 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.

Epi. ackermanii, although it is superficially similar to the cultivated plants identified as secundum that are commonly grown all over the island,  has some differences that easily set it apart.   Wild plants are never seen to form the large tangles of many blooming stems that make secundum so attractive.  Compared with cultivated forms of secundum the inflorescences are few flowered.  The flowers are always smaller than secundum and tend to be closely clustered.  I have never seen Epi. ackermanii in cultivation anywhere, even among fanciers of native orchids, perhaps it is because of the availability of secundum 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. The Epi. secundum that I 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 thought you can see what seems like plenty of suitable habitat, the plant distribution is patchy, with groups of plants here and there.  The largest group I have ever seen only had a few dozen plants widely distributed over an area of a recent landslide.

¹ Ackerman, James D.  1995.  An orchid flora of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Campylocentrum filiforme, a bizzare native orchid that challenges our concept of what an orchid must be

Campylocentrum filiforme, the stems visible in the photo are new and old inflorescences and not the main plant body which is buried under the roots

The roots you see criss crossing the branch in the photo are the orchid, no leaves or stem is visible, inflorescences with seed pods are visible in the center of the photo

A close view

A close up shows the roots which look silvery white when they are dry but turn green when wet, both live and dead roots are visible in the photo

Campylocentrum filiforme ranks among the most bizarre of all of our native orchids.  What people universally regard to be the “orchid”, and I am referring here to the plant body, in this species has become reduced to an extreme degree.  The stem of this plant has been reduced to the point that it barely reaches a centimeter in length.  And the centimeter of stem that comprises the plant body is practically invisible due to the many roots that surround it.  In this species the roots dominate to such an extent that the plant is predominantly a tangle of roots with the stem forming a vanishingly small proportion of the biomass of the plant.

As a result this plant is the orchid world equivalent of a ghost.  Due to the apparent absence of a stem most people fail to recognize this plant as an orchid or even as a discrete plant.  Perhaps a particularly observant person might notice that there are orchid roots growing around the twigs and branches but since there are no leaves in sight anywhere it is probably that it will fail to perceive that the tangle of roots itself is the orchid.

This orchid is regarded as among the most advanced, from an evolutionary stand point, of all orchids.  The plant has abandoned the stem as a locus of photosynthesis and has shifted this function entirely to the roots.  What advantage can this radical departure from the norm of the plant world can this adaptation give this orchid?

The most accepted theory is that the leave less condition of the plant allows it to survive on the meagrest of resources, in a niche where no other plant can compete successfully or even survive.  These plants are mainly found in places where humidity is abundant such as swamps and moist forest areas but I have them also growing in disturbed areas.   Because they depart from most people conception of what a plant must be they are utterly invisible to the average person.  Because they survive with such limited resources these plants are not known to produce large or showy flowers but there are a few exceptions.

 Dendrophylax lindenii, the Florida Ghost orchid, another leave less species of orchid, made news all over the world when a plant in a reserve produced nine flowers at the same time, an unusual event.  The plant itself could hardly be distinguished in the photos from the bark of the tree where it was growing so, on first sight, the inflorescences with their large showy flowers looked like they were springing from the trunk of the tree.

Campylocentrum filiforme is classified as a rare orchid by Ackermann in his book on orchids of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.  But it may be that it is more abundant that records indicate given its stealthy nature.  Apparently nothing is known about the pollination of this species.  It is not in cultivation and probably almost all local orchid growers are unaware that these plants exist.  I have never seen then on exhibition even in shows where there have been displays specifically devoted to native orchids.  Seems to be short lived in the wild as all the plants I monitored died when the twigs in which they were growing decayed.

Cochleanthes flabelliformis the Puerto Rican orchid with the largest flowers

Cochleantes flabelliformis, note that the lip has some damage, probably caused by animals or insects.

A newly open flower, of a plant in situ

Aside view of the flower

A mature flower, in a plant in situ

A developing seed pod

The seed pod has been raised using a dry twing to allow for a better  photograph.  Notice the Caracolus caracolla snails under the plant.

There are three flowers that I regard as the Holy Grail of wild orchid photographers in Puerto Rico.  One is Lepanthes eltoroensis, of which I know of a single photo taken in the wild.  Another is Sudamerlycaste barrintoniae of which I know of only one poor photo from the pre-digital times.  The last is Cochleanthes flabelliformis of which I had never seen a photo of a plant from Puerto Rico growing in the wild.  All these orchids are considered quite rate and the location of known populations (for obvious reasons) are well kept secrets.  So you can imagine my excitement when a botanist friend that knows my interest in photographing this orchid informed that he had located a plant.

Although a plant was accessible for photographing, as is the often the case with orchids, it was not blooming so I had to patiently wait for the blooming season to arrive, I checked the plant from time to time until in August 2008 when I was overjoyed to discover that it started showing signs that it was going to bloom .  The plant, a relatively weak specimen growing in deep shade, eventually produced a single flower.   The flower was somewhat different from what I have seen in pictures and drawings of this species, as you can see in the photo.

The flower produced a seed pod which I was able to photograph before it opened sometime after December.  The plant bloomed again in 2009 and produced a larger flower which I attribute to it getting more light courtesy of some help from a passing orchidist.  This flower didn’t produce a seed pod.  In 2010 the plant seemed to die, only a stump and some dead looking roots remained as evidence of its existence.  But in November of 2010 a tiny side shoot appeared on the side of the dead root mass so this plant may yet bloom again.  If it ever does so I will be ready to get more photos.

This plant is a mystery to me in the sense that even though it is horticultural desirable, being the largest flowered orchid native of Puerto Rico, I have not seen it anywhere in cultivation in Puerto Rico either in local orchid collections or in orchid shows.  Since over collection from the wild has been given as a reason for this plant rarity I would have expected to see it at shows and at local collections.   But this is not the case, in fact the only time I have seen a exhibit that purported to show a specimen of this orchid the plant was actually Cochleantes discolor.

My suspicion is that this orchid does not survive in cultivation in local collections.  I know there are local orchid growers of unsurpassed skill which can maintain rare and difficult to grow orchids alive and thriving for years and years, but those are a small minority.  The majority of local orchid growers are totally unfamiliar with the environmental needs of orchids native to the forests of the mountainous interior of the island.  This means that almost all of the orchids collected from the central highlands usually die slow lingering deaths at the hands of hobbists whose enthusiasm surpasses their knowledge.

Although this plant is rare and local in the wild I don’t think it is in danger of extinction.  The remaining populations are in pretty rugged terrain which is extremely unlikely to be haunted by orchid growers.   Perhaps someone could gather a seed pod and make it available to the orchid community so that nobody had the need or the interest to get plants from the wild?  I will keep this thought in mind.

A curious thing that mystified me was that I found two large Caracolus caracolla snails resting in the leaf litter just under the leaves of this orchid.  These snails are voracious eaters of tender orchid leaves and stems.  Why they ignored the comparatively thin leaves of this orchid instead of devouring them completely is a small mystery.

Ponthieva racemosa, the shadow witch, an orchid native of Puerto Rico

Ponthieva racemosa

Inflorescence, top view

A fly with pollinia stuck to its mouth parts

Pontieva racemosa goes by the common name “the shadow witch”, I don’t know the origin of the name but I am sure it is due to its preference for growing in shaded locations.  It has a patchy distribution in the Rio Abajo forest where it can be locally abundant.  When this plant is not in bloom there is little to betray that it is an orchid.   You can sometimes see it in roadside banks among the weeds as a low growing rosette of leaves growing in the shadow under the trees.  Locally it blooms in the winter and all the plants in a location bloom together.  The flowers are green and small.  It is not in cultivation and I have never seen it exhibited in any of our local orchid shows.

A group of Ponthieva racemosa

Erythrodes hirtella, a Puerto Rican terrestrial orchid that is inconspicuous to a fault

Erythrodes hirtella, inflorescence

Plant body, note the shiny leaves with characteristic venation

Another view of the inflorescence

The orchid Erythrodes hirtella is one of those orchids that is so small, so unorchid-like and so inconspicuous that you could live for years next to a population of these plants and never realize that there were orchids nearby.   This happened to me with this species.  In fact I am sure I would have never noticed it if it had not forced itself on my attention.  Living in the middle of a forest, where it can rain every day for months on end, means that if you have any kind of plant in a pot you have to wage a constant war against invading ferns, melastomaceae, figs and all kind of invasive weeds that feel that the delicate, pampered and well fed denizen of the pot can be displaced by a more aggressive grower.  So I have to constantly weed the pots of face the loss of my plants.  One day meanwhile engaged in the unending weeding I was struck by the peculiar pattern of veining in the leaves of a small weed that had grown in the pot of one of my lilies.  The veining pattern, typically monocotyledonean was suspiciously orchid like.  I decided to spare the intruder and to keep it under observation.  Although initially excited by the mysterious intruder, a search of the literature quickly made clear that the orchid would probably belong to a species that produced small unshowy flowers.

When the plant did bloom the flowers were, as predicted small and unremarkable.  However the blooming did afford me the opportunity to document this species for my photo collection of Puerto Rican orchids.  Once I had become familiar with this plant I spotted others growing in the forest floor in scattered locations near my home.  This species is not in cultivation except perhaps accidentally.  It is the living embodiment of the old dictum “an orchid only of interest to botanists”.  I observed the plant for some time after it bloomed and set seed.  After the seed was dispersed the plant started to deteriorate and it died almost completely.  Some tiny pieces of stem remained alive and started to grow back, but by then my interest in this species had run its course.  The small stem pieces were relocated into a suitable habitat into the forest to live or die in their own terms as nature goes through its yearly cycle.

An Erythrodes sp. I am not sure which species this orchid is

This Erythrodes sp. was growing next to what I believe to be plants of Erythrodes plantaginea, but the flowers and the inflorescences are different.  You can compare both plants looking at this post:  http://ricardogupi.blogspot.com/2010/12/erythrodes-plantaginea-terrestrial.html
It is clearly not Erythrodes hirtella.  Perhaps I am not familir with the variation in flower form and inflorescesce in these species, but for all that is worth here is the photo for comparison.  Comments are welcome.

Prescottia oligantha, one of the tiniest native orchids of Puerto Rico

Prescottia oligantha is one of the tiniest native orchids in Puerto Rico.  The plant itself is of a small size, in some cases just a single two or three inch leaf growing flush against the forest floor.  I found this plant growing in the Maricao State Forest in a slope near a cliff.  The plant was composed of a single two inch leaf and a thin inflorescence with tiny non resupinate flowers.  Once you are in their favored habitat plants are not that difficult to find as you can see the leaves in the forest floor easily enough.  But the flowers are so small they demand a magnifying glass or a faily good macro lens if you want to get a good look or a reasonably good photo.  This plant is not horticulturaly significant.  Given their tiny, hard to see flowers, it is no surprise that they are virtually unknown in the local orchid growing circles.

Pleurothallis ruscifolia a common but rarely noticed rainforest orchid

The flowers of Pleurothallis ruscifolia are small. green and translucid.

Pleuth. ruscifolia plants can be very common in their favored habitat

Pleurothallis ruscifolia is a small epiphytic orchid that is fairly easy to find in the upper eaches of the Sierra de Luquillo.   Because of its inconspicuous and small flowers it is not a subject of horticultural interest except for an extremely small number of orchidist whose focus is on orchids native of PR.  Even among those orchidists this species doesn't seem to be in favor as I have yet to see one of those even among the educational orchid displays that are specifically made to present a selection of native orchid species.

Dendrobium anosmum varieties, is it delacourii or velutinum?

The tubular lip is quite evident in this photo

Note the arrangements of the petals and sepals, the lip is covered in short hairs

I brought this curious plant as a result of falling for a piece of false advertisement back in the early 1990’s. This plant was advertised as being a yellow anosmum, as a collector of anosmum variations I thought this would be a particularly nice addition to my collection. When it arrived it was labeled Dendrobium anosmum var. delacourii. I did some searches for this name, book and library searches in those ancient pre-google times. But I could find no reference for this name, even today with all the might of the Internet at my hands I have yet to find any reference to delacourii in any book as an anosmum variant. There are a few photos of this Dendrobium in the Internet, they all have the characteristic rolled up tubular lip but unfortunately there is no bibliographical reference to go with the name in the texts of the photos. The closest that I have found to a description of something similar to this plant is in H. P. Woods book The Dendrobium where a var. velutinum is described. However the flower in the photo that is used as reference to the description of velutinum does not resemble the plant I brought as delacourii. But given the hairy lip of this plant velutinum seems like an apt description.

The flowers of this variety are among the most distinctive of all the anosmum types. My flowers have relatively slimmer sepals and petals than other varieties and the tubular lip is in some flowers almost parallel to the flower segments. The fragrance is the same as that of the other anosmum varieties but since my plant usually produces few flowers it is not as powerful. The vegetative body of my plants is much less robust than that of the other varieties, the stems are very slim. This plant keikis easily and the plantlets are easy to grow away from the mother plant once they have two year’s growth. The salient characteristic of this plant is the lip covered with a multitude of short hairs on both its upper and lower surfaces. For me the main virtue of this plant is that in my local climatic conditions it blooms in May, months after all other varieties have finished blooming.

An adult plant in flowering season, note the thin stems and the keikis

Dichaea hystricina an orchid native of Puerto Rico

The anchor shaped lip is shown to great advantage in this photo

These flowers are tiny and hard to see, the casual observer can easily miss them in the tangle of stems of the plant.

A young plant

A clump of stems

This small orchid is interesting because of its distinctive growth habit and its peculiar flowers. The stems are flattened and have monopodial distichous stems that vaguely resemble centipedes. The flowers are peculiar in the sense that they are build to be pollinated by euglossine bees, their distinctive lips look like tiny anchors. The last point is the notable because there are no euglossine bees in the the Greater Antilles. There were euglossine bees in the Caribbean in the distant past as evidenced on their presence on the amber found in the deposits in the Dominican Republic. But if there were any in Puerto Rico they are now extinct in here as well as in the other Greater Antilles. So what pollinates this flower in the wild in PR is something of a mystery although it would not be surprising if they turned out to be cleistogamic, that is that they self pollinate. I am fairly confident this plant is hystricina because the margins of the leaves are ciliate, a characteristic of this species.


This orchid has a wide distribution in the tropics in America and the West Indies. Given this huge distribution area that covers many islands and mountain ranges I wonder if in the future this species might get split into several species like they did with Epidendrum difforme. However that is for the taxonomist to decide, for the moment it is considered a single species with a large geographical distribution. Its preferred habitat is in the rain forest of the high mountains of Puerto Rico it is locally abundant and, st least for me, relatively easy to find. Finding the flowers is a matter of timing your visit to their native haunts to their blooming season. I have seen plants blooming here in August and September. It is reported that they bloom from August to November in PR. I have had a difficult time finding and photographing the flowers of this plant mainly due to the rainy nature of its favored haunts. In the Luquillo highlands it can rain at any time of the day almost every single day during the blooming season of this plant. High humidity being inimical to the good functioning and survival of cameras it is not without trepidation that one takes an expensive camera into the sopping wet habitat of this orchid. Of course there are dry days on these forests but often they don’t align well with those weekends and holidays on which I can travel to their area of the forest.

I have seen many plants of this species, including some respectable sized clumps of stems, but so far have been able to take a photo of just a single flower. I found this single flower on an August visit to the forest that happened to allow for a brief respite from the constant rain. Hopefully in the future I will be able to return to their habitat to search for more plants on bloom. I am strongly against collecting this plant as its cultural needs condemn it to a sure death when placed in the hands of the casual orchid grower. Plants removed from its highland habitat and brought into the coastal lowland will slowly die from dehydration even when given a lot of watering mainly because it is so hard to replicate in captivity the combination of high humidity, moderate temperatures and breezy environment that occur in this plant favored locations. That doesn’t mean that given the proper care it can’t grow or even thrive in captivity, is just that the time and equipment investment needed to properly grow this plant away from its rain forest habitat is larger than what a vast majority of orchidists are willing to spend in time and money.

Bletia patula a pale color form

This flowers show a typical coloration,

they were growing a few feet from the pale colored flower.

A very pale flower of Bletia patula

Every so often I grab my backpack and hike into the island forests looking for orchids. I was lucky enough to secure the company of a friend who is just giving up smoking and was quite desperate for anything that would keep his mind off smoking and him away from other smokers. After a few hours of hiking we came upon a huge area where, for some reason, the all vegetation was killed some years ago by the government. Plants have been slow to colonize this patch but you could see here and there small Bletia patula plants growing inter sped with a host of pioneer plant species, mostly grasses. Unfortunately there was only a single B. patula plant in bloom that I could see in the whole area. When I was photographing the plant my friend calling at me from some distance away telling about a plant that might be an orchid. Looking at the plant from a distance I assumed that probably it was the white form of Spathoglottis plicata, which can be found by the thousands in some valleys in the central mountains. But I decided to take a look just in case. When I got near the plant i realized that it could be a Spathoglottis, it had the wrong shape and the inflorescence was too short. Initially I was quite excited at the prospect of having found an alba form of Bletia patula, however the buds were light pink even if the flower was almost white. I have seen groups many thousands of plants of B. patula in many places in the northwestern part of the island and I have never seen a white form. I might be wrong but as far as I know only one alba form of this species has ever been found. This plant is not an alba, but what it could be called, a near alba, semi alba? I am posting a photo here in the hope that someone who knows more about this species might offer some enlightening comment on this plant. By the way I didn't collect this plant, I can't say I wasn't mighty tempted but decided that it will remain in place until I can ascertain if the government plans to eradicate the plants in the area again. In case that the government has plans to keep killing the vegetation in this spot(I think it is done with herbicides) I will move the plant to a secure place inside a state forest where I can keep visiting it. It is possible that I would have missed this plant completely if my friend had not looked at it closely mainly because I would not have associated the light color flowers nodding in the distance with B. patula flowers.

Psychilis krugii at Guanica State Forest

On February 27, 2006, I went to Guanica State Forest to try to find and photograph some variations of the orchid Psychilis krugi. The area is very dry and hot and during the "wet" season it is also horribly mosquito infested (now is the dry season). I had a hard time finding somebody to accompany me. I asked a female friend if she could go with me. I told her that there would be poisonous plants, the odd loathsome insect and fearsomely prickly cactus. She said that she would go since it would be a refreshing change from having to deal with her ex-husband.I went to an area that is rarely visited as the most well traveled areas have been nearly stripped of orchids.We had to hike for a while but when we arrived we found hundreds of plants but very, very few flowers. In fact we saw only three flowers. However the plants had many inflorescenses and probably in a month or two there will be a huge number of flowers.

Vanda tricolor var. suavis, seed pod releasing seed to the wind

I don't recall ever seeing anywhere a picture of the orchid seed being released from a seed capsule. So I decided to photograph the newly opened capsule of a Vanda tricolor var. suavis that is near my shade house and to share the pictures with all of you that might want to see it. This seed capsule reached maturity after about a year of the flower being pollinated. It was naturally pollinated by a local species of solitary bee. The first time I moved the capsule an impressively dense red cloud of seed was released. Unfortunately I was not able to photograph this event. The photograph shows the second event of seed dispersal. I moved the capsule from side to side to stimulate the release of the seed. You can see as the light weight seed floats in the air as a cloud of reddish points. Every surface in the near proximity of the Vanda was sprinkled with some seed but the Phaius plants growing near had their leaves covered with a particularly generous dusting of seeds. It is uncertain if any seed will survive as we are in the peak of the dry season. But just in case I will be on the lookout for any seedling that might develop in near by in any orchid pot, you never know!

Dendrobium densiflorum, culture

A fully mature flower of Den. densiflorum

An inflorescence

Dendrobium densiflorum is an orchid that is widespread in the south of Asia. I got my plant from a friend that got tired of waiting for it to bloom. When I got the plant it had canes that were about a foot tall and had scars that showed that in the past, before my friend had it in his possession it had apparently bloomed. I put it in a pot made out of a plastic soda bottle and put it with my other Dendrobium without too much hope of ever seeing flowers. The plant initially had a measly root ball, but under my care it started producing a significant number of new roots. In 2005 it produced a cane larger than any before, this happened again in 2006 and 2007 when it produced a cane almost two feet long that dwarfed all previous canes. In 2007 it produced its first inflorescence. I suspect that even though the climate might not have been conductive to blooming, this plant was probably immature during the time my friend had it and what we took for inflorescence scars might have been aborted inflorescence buds, something that immature or weak plants sometimes produce. My plant is growing vigorously with routine care and hopefully in the future it will be strong enough to produce multiple inflorescences.

How do I cultivate it.

Light: Full sun most of the morning, dappled sunlight the rest of the day, but much care is taken that the plant is not so exposed as to get sunburn.Temperature: 85F day in summer with a 10F degree drop at night, 75F day between September and April with a 10F degree drop at night.

Watering: Daily when it is producing new growth, when new growth matures all supplemental watering is suspended and it only gets water when it rains.Fertilizer: Weekly diluted 20-20-20 when it is in full growth, none after the cane matures. Organic fertilizer is also used to help the canes to plump up.

Humidity: The climate supplies a humidity level from 70 to 80 percent during the day.

Media: Medium sized bark.Potting: The middle tube of a plastic soda bottle was used, the media was held in by a very open wire bottom that allows for decayed media to fall.

Repotting: The plant was allowed to become pot bound, but it is in need of re potting because the canes have begun to grow against the side of the pot.Seasonality: It gets little special care when not growing or blooming, it gets concentrated care when it is producing new growths as canes grow relatively fast.

This is a magnificent plant that is quite rewarding if you are able to give it the growing conditions it needs. Sadly the flowers are short lived and last only five to six days. I have another plant that was also labeled densiflorum but that has not bloomed even when it achieved a large size. However its canes are deeply furrowed which makes me think it may be thysiflorum. The thyrsiflorum plant grows very well and it’s very hardy but has not shown any inclination to bloom even after ten years under my care.

Pests: Snails and slugs may eat the tender canes but little else seems to bother this plant in my location. Unfortunately the bright color of the inflorescence seems to attract all the thrips in the local area and they will converge of the inflorescence and damage it if it is not protected. (I usually take the plant indoors when its in bloom). Unfortunately thrips seem to find these flowers so alluring that they will wallow through a thick slurry of Sevin dust to sink their thrice accursed mouth parts in the flower, they then die in transports of ecstasy all the while spoiling the flowers with their unsightly little bodies.


A link to the most recent blooming of this species in my collection
http://ricardogupi.blogspot.com/2011/03/dendrobium-densiflorum-revisited-march.html

Habenaria monorrhiza, a native orchid of Puerto Rico

Habitat

I took a longer than usual vacation this December and used the extra time to drive around and photograph orchids. One of the plants I found was Habenaria monorrhiza.Unlike most orchids this plant can be found growing in roadside ditches. I only found it at the higher elevation roadsides, in areas over 2500 feet in altitude. Supposedly it can grow at lower altitudes but I have never seen it in the lowlands. The plants I saw were small and few flowered. It is possible that I missed most plants in the population due to the tangle of growths in the roadsides at higher elevations. The orchids were not particularly hard to see but the many types of plants growing in the roadside plus the fact that there was a white flowered weed species flowering at the time, made spotting this plant somewhat difficult. This plant was seen near Orocovis, close to the geographical center of the island. I have never seen this plant in cultivation or in exhibition anywhere in the island so I suspect that it either dies in cultivation, local growers find it too plain to spend any time and effort growing it or most likely it is not recognized as being an orchid. This orchid should be enjoyed in its habitat and not collected.

Temperature: Possibly middle eighties during the day, down into the sixties or lower at night.

Substrate: It appeared to be dense waterlogged clay soil.

Lightning: Half the day full sunlight, the rest bright shadow.

Watering: Very wet, almost daily rain, lots of fog and drizzle.

Humidity: 100% at night, probably in the nineties during the day.Blooming: In autumn and winter (Ackermann, J. D., Orchids of PR and The Virgin Islands) apparently a few plant can be found in bloom at any time in the year.