Wild Orchids in Orlando - Orchid Board

DrewsCruise · #1 01-09-2011, 11:23 AM

If you want to see a bunch of the butterfly orchids. Try visiting down in south east Orlando, Moss Park. Great place to see tons of these wild guys. I'll give you a head start too. Once you pay your 3 bucks a car to get into the park. Take your second right. The road goes next to an open field on your left. Once you get to the end of the field on your left. Look right. A big Oak tree will be on the right, it has one big branch aiming back the way you just came. Hanging right off the road about mid way on that branch you will see two clups of the butterfly orchids. There about mid size that I see out there. Have fun. (stay on that same road and if you start looking at any of the BIG Low hanging Old Oaks about a 1/3 of a mile back and more. You will be very suprised. I have named a clump we found on a tree on the right Don King. You will know if you see it ;-)
Also Blanchard Park in east Orlando behind the YMCA has a couple little trails. If you go back to the back side of those trails you will start seeing the green fly orchids all over the place.. But you must get back into the far side of the trails(next to the stream) before you start seeing them. They too a very plentiful to see.
Have fun here too!

Drew

Alyons · #2 01-09-2011, 12:49 PM

I keep hearing about all these wonderful orchids in the wild in Florida and it makes me depressed that I am here in Pennsylvania with 6 inches of snow right now!!

I'm sure our Florida people will be happy to know this information though.

DrewsCruise · #3 01-09-2011, 08:36 PM

I think we were mid 70's today:-)

I also went out looking again today. My buddy has some pretty good woods behind his house. It is SOOoo much easir to find them right now. None of the cypress and most of the trees are bare after these freezes we have had. The Butterfly Orchids though are alive and very easy to spot. Most even still have the seed pods hanging that are a dead give away at a distance.

Now being up in PA does have its advantages. I will never see a wild Lady Slipper just growing on the ground.

prem · #4 01-10-2011, 01:12 AM

It's a good idea to hunt for Dendrophylax porrectus in these same sorts of areas...they favor eastern red cedar, bald cypress, and pop ash trees, usually on the undersides of small twigs. Look for thin roots that are about 1/2 to 3/4 the thickness of Enc. tampensis roots without any leaves/pseudobulbs nearby. A really dead giveaway is the cluster of small, brownish-orange seedpods that will be dangling from the growing center of mature plants.

A number of reference pictures can be found here:

Jingle Bell Orchid, Needleroot Orchid (Dendrophylax porrectus (syn. Harrisella porrecta)) Information Page at Florida's Native and Naturalized Orchids

prem · #5 01-13-2011, 02:42 PM

Angel,
here's an orchid you can look for in Pennsylvania right now:

US Wildflower - Puttyroot, Adam and Eve - Aplectrum hyemale

Aplectrum hyemale, or Puttyroot, puts up frost-resistant leaves in winter in the forests that it calls home. The leaves then wither just before blooming. If you flag the locations of the leaves in winter, then finding the blooming plants in spring will be much easier. This is what we do with Tipularia discolor (a species with a similar habit) in Florida.

---Prem