Paramo Lithophytes

When you get "down" to about 12-

11000ft, orchids become more varied and common. Venturing off the trail to explore rock faces such as the one

in the photo below, reveal a hand-full of lithophitic species. A few species of Stelis, Pachyphyllum, and

a few other pleurothallids grow from mossy cracks in rocks. The little vandacious Pachyphyllum always seem to be in every stage of budding, seeding

and blooming at the same time. These orchids are easy to find if you look in

the right places but if you really want to see their flowers, a magnifying lens is

nescesary. I carry a "loupe" which is a very small but very powerful magnifying glass, and its small enough that I can wear it around my neck. The clump of Pachyphyllum must be dozens of years old yet it is only about6 inches tall and each growth is about 1/2 inch wide! The Stelis too can be very miniscule. I found a species with leaves only half an inch tall and flowers so small that even the loop didnt show much. They are known for being extremely difficult to identify so I didnt even try.

Myrosmodes

Add this to the number of times orchids have blown my mind! I usually keep my eyes peeled for them on any hike but I was surely not expecting to find them at 15000ft on the side of a mountain I was climbing! These Myrosmodes are the most extreme example of this adaptable family I have ever encountered. Growing where the intense sun quickly burns exposed skin, yet the bitingly cold wind robs all warmth from a resting hiker, these plants like most others that are able to grow here lie low and even recess themselves into the ground if they are able. Effectively out of the wind, the leaves are able to become quite warm in the day, however, camping nearby revealed that the temperatures sink below freezing at night. This means that these plants grow with a 30-40 degree F difference between day and night.

I googled the genus name and found a botanical drawing that showed the the vast majority of the plant is underground. The rosette seen in the photos is the tips of the leaves which sink another few inches into the soil. Their proportionally massive spikes(although it is only a couple of inches tall) illustrate the true size of the orchid. The one to the left shows a spent spike which has forced its way up through the layer of cushin plants as well as the tiny recessed leaf-crown. There were perhaps two species because I also found plants with much longer, thinner spikes, but it could be environmental conditions that cause that change.

A walk through the paramo: Aa

A cold, grassy hillside, 13000ft in the Andes is not the environment one would normally conjure-up when thinking about orchids, but then again the orchids you find there don’t exactly scream “ORCHID!” when you see them either. In fact if you don’t know what you are looking for you might not even see them at all, because they lack the flamboyant beauty, which has made the rest of the family famous. Also, like the other plants in the paramo, they have adapted to life in a harsh zone, which has driven them to throw everything they don’t need to

survive overboard. This one is from the genus Aa, which was named this because a botanist named Reichenbach wanted them to be the first name in botanical literature, and since I guess Aa is technically “Latinized,” the name flew.

The leaves of the plant seasonally die back to their tubers in the ground (side note: these little round tubers found on some terrestrial orchids are what brings orchids to have their name, as “orchis” means testicles in Greek). Their leaves lie almost flat to the ground, while their inflorescences (“spikes” to orchid enthusiasts) hole their little white flowers about a foot off the ground. This keeps them well below the grasses and therefore fairly out of sight (-1), but also keeps them out of the wind (+1). The minute flowers are oriented with the lip up (where it is downward on most orchids) and it forms a little cave-like chamber. The mouth of the chamber is lined with hairs, which leads me to hypothesize that an insect enters the cave, inside which are the sexual organs of the flower, and the hairs discourage it from leaving. That being said, no one knows what pollinates them as far as I know.

Spider Orchid

I would like to kick off this blog by sharing something that I found out only yesterday. It is an interesting story of imitation which I hope will set a feel for this blog.

The Spider Orchid

If you talk to someone who is a avid plant grower they will often use a frustrating amount of botanical names, even when talking to a curious lay-person, but in their defense, there are really no common names for the vast majority of plant species. A perfect example of the confusion which can caused by liberal use of common names is the orchid called the "Tiger orchid." The problem with calling this plant the tiger orchid is that there are dozens of plants which potentially fit this description. The same might apply to the "spider orchids"which might include the genius Ada, Brassia, and whatever

else has long whispy petals.

It turns out, though, that we aren't the only ones who think the Brassias look like long legged orb-web spiders. Parasitic wasps, on the hunt for spiders, sometimes mistake the flowers for their prey. Normally, the wasps temporarily paralyze the spiders and lay their eggs on their abdomens. The larva then hatch and begin parasitizing the innards of the spider until, eventually, they suck the spider dry legs and all. The wasps sting the lip of the flowers (which is positioned to look just like a spiders abdomen) over and over to no effect, and in the struggle the wasp gets a packet of pollen called pollinia attached to its head or back. When and if it makes the same mistake again, pollen may be

deposited on a sticky surface of the sexual organs of the orchid, thereby pollinating it.