Tropical Texas Orchid Reserve

Reply to thread... Tampa Florida outdoor growing

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CA2FLxplant, you don't miss Van Nuys?  hehe.  How much better could central Florida really be?

Actually I sometimes dream about moving to the Southernmost part of Texas.  It's almost tropical there.  I'd like to buy a bunch of acres and start an orchid reserve dedicated to the conservation and proliferation of CAM epiphytic orchids.  I'd attach a gazillion orchids to the trees and let nature select for the most drought/temperature tolerant individuals.  The goal would be to try and move the fittest individuals across the country via reasonably sized "steps".  

Here in California it's too big of a leap for epiphytic orchids to naturalize.   All epiphytic orchids are summer growers... but here they'd have to adapt to being winter growers.  Plus, it's a numbers game...the more seeds you throw at nature the more progress can be made.  And I just don't have enough trees here to throw seeds at. It's not like I can walk around the neighborhood sowing orchid seeds on street trees.  Well...I could...but then I'd probably have to explain to people why I was watering their trees.

Florida could work pretty well but Texas is nice because it's centrally located.  Plus, ideally, there would be a satellite location a few hours drive across the border into Mexico.  This would help function as "insurance".  Kind of like an external hard drive to back up important files (orchids).  If the main computer (Texas reserve) crashed (500 year freeze) then the most important files (orchids) could be easily restored.    

Eventually every botanical garden in the US would have orchids growing on their trees!  I think there's a chance that it might happen anyways...but I'd prefer if it happened sooner rather than later.

I didn't buy those flasks!  Did you?  Unfortunately the same flask is available again for the same way too reasonable price!

Please let me know if you decide to cross everything with E. tampensis and sow the seeds on every tree.  I'd love to hear all about it.  I'm really curious how readily the seeds of E. tampensis (both the species and its hybrids) germinate on trees in Florida.  If they don't readily germinate...then it's either because the precipitation/temperature wasn't adequate...or the necessary fungus wasn't present.  The absence of the necessary fungus would definitely be a problem.  The solution would be to try and proliferate the fungus by attaching inoculated orchids to trees.  I'm under the impression that orchid roots help the fungus colonize a tree.  The more a fungus has colonized a tree...the more likely it is that the spores will land on adjacent trees.  I have no idea how many orchids would have to be attached to trees in order for the virtuous cycle to be "jump-started".  But you're probably on the right track when your neighbors mention that they have random orchids growing on their trees.

It's possible that other epiphytic plants besides orchids help to spread the necessary fungus.  At the end of August my friend brought back a piece of Pyrrosia piloselloides from either Thailand or Cambodia. She gave me a small division and I attached it to a section of old trellis wood covered in New Zealand Sphagnum. I stuck part of the mount at an angle in a pot filled with bark and topped with a layer of Sphagnum. So the fern is both potted and mounted. Kinda hedged my bets. I thoroughly watered the fern and then I sowed some monopodial orchid seeds all over the surface of both the pot and the mount. The seeds were from...

P. vandarum x V. tricolor
R. imschootiana x R. gigantea?

Lastly I stuck the pot/mount in a zip lock bag under lights in my garage. The bag isn't completely sealed.

The fern quickly started to grow and last week I spotted one fat protocorm right next to the fern. It was just starting to put out its first leaf...which now looks a little wide for a vandarum cross. But perhaps the tricolor leaf is dominant.

I'm guessing that the orchid seed germinated as the result of fungus from the fern root. Although, the fern is attached to a twig...so maybe that's where the fungus came from.  But I definitely wouldn't be surprised if some populations of Florida's most common epiphytic fern...Pleopeltis polypodioides...had the necessary fungus in their roots.  So it's entirely possible that attaching this fern to trees might also help spread the necessary fungus.

A Hasty Case For Naturalizing Epiphytes

Reply to thread... Video of Cattleya Blooming on my Tree

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Thanks! Regarding your honest questions...well...did you ever see the SNL skit with Christopher Walken where he needs more cowbell? I guess I'm the same way with orchids on trees. When I drive around Southern California I shout out the window..."all these trees need more orchids!"

As far back as I can remember I've always been a fan of more nature. When I was a kid my mom bought me the book "Vanishing Eden". It was filled with pages and pages of plants and animals that I really didn't want to vanish. Shortly afterwards I saw Bladerunner for the first time. I really loved the movie but I really didn't want the future to look like that.

Basically, when people attach orchids and other epiphytes to trees...they help to offset the loss of nature elsewhere. There's a lot of nature being lost elsewhere...so it's not just sufficient to add plants to the ground...it's necessary to add plants to trees. Doing so helps to create a virtuous cycle.

An orchid on a tree will help widely disperse far more necessary fungus than an orchid in a pot will. Here's how I've illustrated this...

When more fungus is dispersed to surrounding trees...this increases the chances that orchid seeds will germinate on them. So more orchids on trees will lead to more orchids on trees.

Orchids and other epiphytes on trees help facilitate cascades. As we all know too well...orchids are an excellent source of food for a wide variety of "pests". But adding an orchid to a tree doesn't just provide more food for aphids, mealy bugs, slugs and bush snails...it also provides more food for the spiders, lady bugs and lizards that eat these pests. Plus, an epiphyte on a tree can provide shelter and a home for all sorts of animals. Flowering epiphytes can also provide nectar to a wide variety of pollinators.

In addition to facilitating cascades...it's important to naturalize orchids because this helps to subject them to the process of natural selection. The more orchids that sidestep this selection process...the less orchids that will be able to survive in nature. The world is constantly changing...so if nature changes in one direction...but orchids change in another direction...then in the future we will only be able to see orchids in conservatories. We're not doing anybody any favors by overly protecting orchids from cold or drought.

The orchid family is so successful because they throw a lot of seeds at nature. If we want the orchid family to continue being so successful... then we have to help orchids throw more seeds at nature. If we help throw enough orchid seeds at nature...then it doesn't matter if future conditions are colder/hotter or wetter/drier...there will be plenty of orchids that have sufficiently suitable combinations of traits.

Perhaps it's somehow inevitable that the future will have plenty of trees with orchids growing on them. I don't think this is the case though. I regularly search flickr for orchid tree...and the rate of relevant additions is pretty low. So I do what I can to try and help encourage more people to think outside the pot.

What do you think? Do I need to be so persistent? Does your individual foresight show you a future with an abundance of orchids on trees? Will the world look like more like heaven...or...?

Introduced Species Can't Always Reduce Biodiversity

Comment on: The last uninvaded frontier?

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One thing I feel compelled to note is that it can't be the rule that introduced exotics decrease biodiversity.  Or else each exotic plant introduced to the Hawaiian Islands over the past 28 million years would have reduced biodiversity.  You can't have much biodiversity if every introduction results in the loss of one established species.  Errr...you can't have any biodiversity because the second exotic plant species would simply have replaced the first...and the third species would have replaced the second...

It could certainly be prudent to play it safe by arguing against the introduction of any species anywhere...but I think the priority should really be determining why some introduced species increase, rather than decrease, biodiversity.

The first plant to establish in Hawaii was like the first person on the bus.  They had their pick of seats.  It would be surprising for the second person to board the bus and force the first person out of their seat.  "Hey, that's my seat!"  It's not the greatest analogy because we have to imagine people being better suited to certain seats on a bus.

How many seats (microhabitats) are there in Hawaii?  We can imagine an epiphyte boarding the bus and seeing that all the seats were taken..."it's ok, I prefer sitting on the roof".  Epiphytes have no problem sitting in really uncomfortable seats.  That's why they really increase the biodiversity to space ratio.

When I spent three years in the jungles of Panama...I really can't say that I saw a lot of people sitting on top of the buses.  Epiphytes were the exception rather than the rule.  Then again, I spent most of my time on the "drier" Pacific side.

Oncidium cebolleta grows in the dry forests of the Americas and Dendrobium canaliculatum grows in the dry forests of Australia.  I would be extremely surprised if their cross introductions resulted in the loss of biodiversity.  There are plenty of empty uncomfortable seats.  Or maybe they would say to each other like two old time western gunslingers..."this here town ain't big enough for the two of us".

Epiphytic orchids, unlike other epiphytes such as bromeliads, rarely ever have high density populations.  Generally they are few and far between.  For me this seems to indicate that the rule for introduced orchids will not be a reduction in biodiversity.

Not sure if I'm remembering/interpreting a paper correctly...but a study of established reed stem Epidendrums in Hawaii seemed to indicate that they've already started to noticeably differentiate in the past 50 or so years since they've naturalized.  It's pretty amazing how quickly they've adapted to the selective pressures of a new environment.  I wonder how long it would take for them to become a new subspecies...and eventually a new species.