Landscape Design

African Affinities – East Everglades Orchids

African Affinities:

Moreover the four orchid species Florida has in common with Africa and the four other species which are closely related to their African forerunner, Florida also has five other genera in common with Africa. Four of these genera are, like Polystachya, Liparis and Eulophia among the 10 which Dressler (1981) considers to be the only Pantropical genera of orchids. One extra orchid genus in Florida became Pantropical only with human help.

Bulbophyllum

Maybe the most interesting common genus is Bulbophyllum. This huge group of orchids seems to be a taxonomic quagmire. The number of species listed for the genus arranges systemeticly from 500 (Luer, 1972) to 1,000 (Dressler, 1993). And Bulbophyllum expert Emly Siegerist, in a personal communication, addresses that 2,770 names have been published as Bulbophyllum species. Definately, many of those names now have been reallocated to other genera or have been reduced to synonyms.

But no matter how many entire species there are, the greatest number happen in Southeast Asia, making it seems to be the center of evolution for the genus.

In Africa, the estimated number of species also differs. Joyce Stewart and Esme F. Hennessy, in Orchids of Africa: A Select Review (1981), make a list of 90 species for the continent. But Siegerist writes: “By my count there are 334 species of the genus in Africa, but please keep in mind that there are as many opinions on what forms a valid species and what is a synonym as there are orchid growers!”

For the New World, Siegerist make a list of 25 species. Although this is speculation, it seems logical to hypothesize that these species probably evolved from African ancestors.

Of the 25 New World bulbophyllums, one species, Bulbophyllum pachyrhachis, has made an uncertain entry into the wilds of South Florida. It was first found deep in the watery recesses of the Fakahatchee Strand in 1956 by very famous and admired orchid explorer Fred J. Fuchs, Jr. Later, Carlyle Luer photograph it there in February 1961 (Luer, 1972). It has been seen a few times since then, but access to the more remote portions of the Fakahatchee has become extremely difficult in the years since the strand was acquired by the State of Florida as a nature preserve beginning in the early 1970s. A number of recent arduous short attempts into the heart of the strand, including into known former haunts of this orchid, have failed to find any plants.

Collectors may have annihilated what was only an extremely small colony of this orchid, which is widespread in Mexico, Central America, northern South America and the Antilles. But perhaps a few plants remain scattered in the 126-square-mile hugeness of the Fakahatchee. Nevertheless, it has been years since anybody has seen only Bulbophyllum species in the wild of Florida.

Vanilla

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Dressler, in The Orchids: Natural History and Classification (1981), considers Vanilla to be one of the two earliest orchid genera to get a good Pantropical distribution. (The other is the little-known terrestrial genus Corymborkis, with eight species.)

Vanilla now is recognized to be made up of about 100 species worldwide (Dressler, 1993). Stewart and Hennessy (1981) make a list of eight species for Africa. Kenneth M. Cameron of The New York Botanical Garden says in a personal communication that a recent count shows around half the earth’s species of Vanilla happening in the New World. Five Of these have been recorded in Florida.

The leafless Vanilla barbellata, commonly called worm vine due to the appearance of the plant, is probably the most common member of the genus in Florida, being discovered in wet areas of the Florida Keys and across the southern end of the peninsula in Dade County and the southern part of mainland Monroe County.

In spite of the species’ less-than-appealing common name, V. barbellata is among the largest-flowered and most beautiful of Florida’s native orchids, growing short-lived flowers that are similar to some Brazilian bifoliate Cattleya species.

Other leafless Vanilla species of Florida, Vanilla dilloniana, has been reported only once, from a long-destroyed tropical hardwood hammock on the southern bank of the Miami River. Pieces of plants from this colony have been shared among orchid growers in Southern Florida so it is seen sometimes in local collections.

Vanilla dilloniana is far and away the most beautiful of Florida’s native vanillas, and it is a shame which it has been lost in the wild. The large flowers have green sepals and petals and a ruffled lip of rich reddish purple, with a yellow crest.

Of the vanillas having a lot of leaves, Vanilla phaeantha is a quite common sight in the Fakahatchee Strand, where it is seen zigzagging up the trunks of bald cypress trees (Taxodium distichum). The yellowish-green flowers are similar to a large version of the commercial vanilla, Vanilla planifolia.

The broad-leaved Vanilla inodora (sometimes listed as Vanilla mexicana) was first found in a small area of tree islands in the eastern Everglades southwest of Homestead in 1953, again by Fred J. Fuchs, Jr., this time in the company of his father (Luer, 1972). Collectors soon damaged the large part of the small population, and the tree islands later were badly damaged by wildfires. Nonetheless, in 1980, a second colony was found some 150 miles to the north, in Martin County on the land near the coast (Richardson, Hansen and Sauleda, 1985). At this spot, and a second population not far away, the species appears to be healthy and fairly safe.

This is also an extremely attractive Vanilla species, although different in appearance from V. dilloniana or V. barbellata. The apple-green flowers have beautifully undulate outside parts. The pure white lip sports a long, narrowly v-shaped yellow callus. The smoothly curved edges of the sepals and petals offer the flowers the look of a Schomburgkia.

The fifth of Florida’s “native” vanillas may not truly be a native after all. This is V. planifolia (which some authorities are now confusingly calling Vanilla mexicana), the species which most commercial vanilla extract is derived from. The few locations where this orchid is known to happen in Florida are in association with sites of former human habitations, leading to the theory that this species may have been brought to Florida in pre-Columbian times by Indians trading with cultures in Mesoamerica, the natural habitat of V. planifolia (Luer, 1972).

Habenaria
Globally, there are some 600 species of Habenaria because the genus is now understood, with the removal of such slightly related genera as the temperate-climate Platanthera (Dressler, 1993). Of these 600 species, 200 are reported for Africa (Stewart and Hennessy, 1981). Many species also grow in the New World, and four true habenarias happen in Florida.

The rarest is Habenaria distans, which is discovered in swamp forests in southwest Florida in and near the Fakahatchee Strand, with a strangely disjunct population reported for Highlands County in the southern part of Central Florida.

In the south end of the state, the most common species is Habenaria odontopetala (now cut to synonymy under the name Habenaria floribunda by some authors, such as Wunderlin, 1998).

The furthest north, true Habenaria in the Western Hemisphere is Habenaria repens, the very pleasant little water spider orchid. This aquatic species is found sparingly in southern Florida, although it is quite frequent in the Fakahatchee Strand. Nevertheless, it becomes common in watery habitats farther north in the state, and it extends northward as far as coastal North Carolina and westward along the Gulf coast to Texas and then into Mexico and tropical America, where it is widespread.

The fairliest of Florida’s habenarias is Habenaria quinqueseta, a species of pinelands that ranges from the Lower Keys throughout Florida, up the Atlantic coast to South Carolina and along the Gulf coast to eastern Texas.

Malaxis
This genus related to Liparis has about 300 species globally (Dressler, 1993), with seven species in Africa (Stewart and Hennessy, 1981) and several species in the New World. Luer (1975) makes a list of eight species for the United States and Canada, though that number may be low in terms of recent taxonomic changes. Only two members of the genus grow in Florida.

Malaxis spicata, a two-leaved species, happens from the swamps of the Big Cypress as far north as coastal Virginia, in addition to the West Indies.

Malaxis unifolia has a much wider range, happening throughout the eastern United States and neighboring areas of southern Canada as far north as Newfoundland on the Atlantic coast. Oddly, it happens from Mexico into northern Central America too, in addition to Cuba and Jamaica.

In Florida, nevertheless, there are records of this species only as far south as Hernando County on the Gulf coast.

Zeuxine
Although 76 species of Zeuxine are reported globally (Dressler, 1993), this genus is mainly Asian. Only three species are reported for Africa (Stewart and Hennessy, 1981).

One species, though, has made it to the New World thanks to humans. This is Zeuxine strateumatica, a species from Southeast Asia that now has naturalized in every part of Florida. It also happens in neighboring coastal areas of southern Georgia. And because it happens in the Pensacola area at the far-western end of Panhandle of Florida, it is safe to presume that it’s probably present in neighboring coastal areas of Alabama. It also happens in the Bahamas (Correll and Correll, 1982).

This little terrestrial species is frequently overlooked by orchid lovers, who step on it in their lawns. This habitat explain one of the orchid’s ordinary names, lawn orchid.

That name gives a clue to the suspected method of initiation of this orchid into Florida too. It is theorized that it came to the state among seeds of centipede grass (Eremochloa ophiuroides), which were brought from China for use as a turf grass. First reported in Florida in 1936 from western Indian River County (Ames, 1938), in only 64 years, this orchid has dispersed over its current range in the United States and the Bahamas. Together with Oeceoclades maculata, it is the only extensively naturalized orchid in Florida.

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