Ghost Hunters, Part IV

Originally posted on Audubon Guides on July 16th, 2012

My companions take the first step into the duckweed (Lemna valdiviana) covered muck. It stirs slightly and closes back in over the black water as they wade out into the slough. “Something moved in the water” one of them says. “Probably a snake”. I’ve seen Cottonmouths (Agkistrodon piscivorus) out here in the past, most notably one that bobbed to the surface after I stepped on it. They can inject venom with an underwater bite. I got lucky. We carry sticks for balance, to probe the water depth and to check for critters. We can’t dismiss the American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) either. We believe there’s not enough food for an alligator out here yet. At least that’s what we’re telling ourselves.

With each step we look a few feet above us. Ghost Orchids are leafless plants that have recognizable green-white cord like roots that radiate from a center point. They typically grow 6-10 feet above the water on Pop Ash and Pond Apples which provide excellent cover and trap the perfect amount of humidity for these epiphytes to thrive.

My one mistake of the day sets me on edge for the rest of it. As I wade into deeper water I sidestep an unseen fallen branch at my feet. I plunge from knee depth to hip deep in a second and suddenly my cameras, which I've raised over my head are not my biggest concern. I safely scramble onto a dry island and consider the importance of my walking stick.

I pick up the “trail” – a loose separation of duckweed that my companions have slogged through and continue hip deep at a cautious pace. They have found the first Ghost, a double with two blooms floating to either side of the host tree trunk.

The decision is made to check the edges of the slough as the plants in the middle seem to have bloomed early. I gratefully make my way out of the deep water as my shoes make one last sucking gasp as the mud releases them. Two year ago we found four Ghosts in another slough. Suddenly we were surrounded by them. Several were just blooming, some wilting and others in full resplendent glory. We found singles, doubles and one triple blossom plant – 22 all told.

Ghost Orchid twins © Pete Corradino

As I wrap my head around our good fortune I hear whispers. Babbling sounds from the center of the swamp. Am I imagining this? It sounds like people but we are out in the middle of nowhere. After a few moments, three strangers make their way across the slough and beam in on a flower their GPS has led them to. We introduced ourselves and left them to their work. That’s when we found this beautiful “triple” double, a double blossom with a single blossom growing from a neighboring plant. Beautiful.

After all of that, I’m afraid it’s time to head back the way we came in. 

Ghost Hunters, Part III

Originally posted on Audubon Guides - July 9th, 2012

Fear is an acceptable emotion that can lead to a heightened sense of awareness and ultimately protect one from a potential threat. I’m not afraid of ghosts. Nor am I afraid of seeking them but there are situations involved in the hunt that make you pause and consider that what you are doing is extremely dangerous and each step must be made with the greatest level of caution. The reward is ephemeral – 22 ivory white Ghost Orchid (Dendrophylax lindenii) blossoms floating under a canopy of Pop Ash (Fraxinus caroliniana) and Pond Apples (Annona glabra) in the midst of Florida’s greatest wildernesses – the Everglades.

The first step off the unpaved road is a hot one. Sawgrass (Cladium jamaicense) radiates intense heat and although it’s just after 8 AM, it feels like someone opened the oven door. Drainage efforts over the years have created high and dry ecotones, where welcoming shade comes from Slash Pines (Pinus elliottii) along the trail. A Black Bear (Ursus americanus) footprint reminds us that we are not alone out here. This doesn’t concern me. The bear mostly likely knows we are here and has gone in the other direction.

Black Bear tracks

Eventually the slightest elevation change brings us through a transition zone where towering Pond Cypress (Taxodium ascendens) draped with briars make the narrowing trail all the more difficult to traverse. There is no water here yet, but by the end of the rainy season, it will be two feet deep where we stand.

As the elevation plummets by the inch, the canopy closes in, the temperature drops nearly 20 degrees and we come to the edge of the water. The rainy season began a month back and the sloughs of the Everglades have been the first to fill. The limestone has been carved out by flowing water and has created the perfect environment for Pop Ash, Pond Apples and an assortment of native, spectacular orchids.

(to be continued)

Ghost Hunters, Part II

There is no shortage of danger in the Everglades. Our quest to find the rare and endangered Ghost Orchid (Dendrophylax lindenii) in the swamps of South Florida has led us to a tiny slough in a remote area of the Big Cypress National Preserve.

I have seen one Ghost Orchid in the wild – the now famous Corkscrew Swamp “Super Ghost” that can be seen at Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Naples, FL. It’s the only orchid whose location is not a secret. It’s unusual in that it was discovered growing forty-five up on the trunk of a Bald Cypress. It also showed off eleven blooms at one point and could be seen for several weeks straight.

Ghost Orchids are most commonly found growing on Pop Ash or Pond Apple trees, offer one bloom for a couple weeks in the summer and can be found floating like an apparition just a few inches from the tree and just above eye level.

Our quest involved wading hip-deep in cool water from tree trunk to tree trunk, looking for the signature spider-like tendrils of the Ghost Orchid. Unseen underwater logs impeded progress while floating debris had to be cast aside as we poked our way around the swamp with hiking poles. Here there may be dragons of the Alligator variety but slow, methodical probing of the area around us would most likely encourage any restless reptiles to move elsewhere.

Within a few minutes of entering the slough we had found our first Ghost Orchid plant, an amassment of green, cord-like vegetation with distinct white-dashes, giving each “branch” the appearance of a divided highway. Our next plant offered success in the form of a single, ethereal bloom seemingly suspended in midair.

Ghost Orchids are pollinated by the Giant Sphinx Moth (Cocytius antaeus), a long-tongued night flyer that sips sweet nectar from the unusually long nectary of the Ghost Orchid. By visiting the bloom, the moth unknowingly rubs it’s head on the anther cap or pollinium of the flower. If it visits another flower it has the rare opportunity of assisting in pollination. From there the Ghost casts out wind-borne seeds to hopefully begin the next generation.

After several water-logged hours of listening to the incessant buzzing and biting of “swamp angels”, navigating around softball-sized woods spiders and watching for Cottonmouths and other critters we had the good fortune of discovering over fifty ghost orchids with four in bloom.

My Shangri-la exists but you have to believe in Ghosts. 

Ghost Hunters, Part I

The exact location of my whereabouts on this Sunday morning shall remain a mystery. A map to Shangri-la would only entice a stampede of curious explorers, whom however well-intentioned could cause the downfall of this subtropical Floridian utopia.

Our quest is the rare and endangered Ghost Orchid (Dendrophylax lindenii), an epiphytic bloom that resides in the most far-flung swamps and sloughs of South Florida. The site could be considered paradise to few. To find our quarry required driving the dust-choked back roads of the 750,000 acre Big Cypress National Preserve to a “trailhead”. From here we would bushwhack through sharp-toothed sawgrass and slosh in muddy, ankle-deep, sun-boiled water before we reached the blissful partial shade of the Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum) forest.

Under the canopy of the cypress, the temperatures cooled mildly, while the humidity seemingly required the use of gills. Wasps clung to nests, carefully tucked under the fronds of the cabbage palm. Knock a frond and we’d have to move quickly through an invisible trail where thorny green-briar vines, camouflaged and draped from tree to tree threatened to decapitate the hurried, careless hiker.

As we waded further through the cypress, the water became deeper and darker, the trees taller. With water now up to our hips, we sloshed past the last of the cypress and into our final obstacle of our swamp gauntlet, the Pop Ash slough. The suffocating cypress now behind us, we pushed into the slough, filled with Pop Ash (Fraxinus caroliniana) and Pond Apple (Annona glabra) trees. Their roots are inundated and their trunks emerging from cool, black water that surrounded us in every direction. The well-shaded canopy permits the occasional beam of sun to poke through and illuminate the tannin-stained leaves that rest on the bottom of a nearly imperceptible flow of water.

Here is where our search begins. There is hardly an inch of tree trunk that is not covered by lichens, Resurrection Ferns (Pleopeltis polypodioides) or Clam Orchids. With space at a premium in this small nook of the Everglades, plants grow where they can and competition is fierce. There are an estimated 1200+ Ghosts spread out in various locations in South Florida. The question is “are there Ghost Orchids here?”

The adventure continues tomorrow…