Costa Rica, Part Four of Five- Lankaster Botanical Gardens: OMG ORCHIDS!

I am an orchid nut.  I should probably put that as a disclaimer.

I'll quote the corresponding section written by Billy Russell in CHBC Costa Rica for a sense of perspective.

...while most of us headed back to the hotel in a bus nearly flooding from the tears of our sad, sad youth, a small group set off to an off campus site of the University of Costa Rica to look at plants. Jared has been very good about sharing his knowledge on all things green this week (and most things creepy-crawly). I've never been so intrigued and horrified at the same time than whenever Jared would point out something he found... 

The plan was never to go to Lankaster Botanical Gardens  (the off campus site referred to above) in the first place.  However, everyone had noted how plant-crazy I had been, pointing out this and that.  A local missionary offered to take a few people over to visit Lankaster Botanical Gardens,  I went with them.  Lankaster has an extremely large orchid collection, so I was immediately in heaven.  I have very little knowledge of tropical orchids, so most of these plants are complete unknowns to me.






























This is about half of the building where the orchids were housed.  There are also some Bornean Nepenthes pitcher plants and a few bromeliads, but over 90% of the collection was orchids.

The small epiphytic orchids were mounted in moss on wood blocks.  One of the most distinctive features of Costa Rica in general was the epiphytes.  Epiphytes, for the unaware, are plants that grow on trees. While moss and lichens tend to grow on trees, vascular plants generally only grow on trees in the subtropics and tropics.  In central Illinois, there appear to be no true vascular epiphytes.  Costa Rica, by contrast, has thousands of plant species, as diverse as cactus and orchids, all growing on trees.  (The houseplant Christmas cactus, Schlumbergia spp., is a form of epipytic cactus from Brazil.)

Here, some bromeliads are growing on a cactus.

Here is another plant growing on a tree.  This is an unknown member of the Araceae family of plants, related to the native Arisaema triphyllum, or jack in the pulpit.  The leaves were over two feet long.

There were a lot of orchids.  If it hadn't been for the previous day, this would be the highlight of the trip.  Ziplining and what's in Post #5  still beat this out, however.  You'll see why in a few days.

I have no idea what this is.   The flowers reminded me of an antelope for reasons as yet unclear to me.

Anguloa, or Tulip Orchid, looks more like an infant in a stroller than a tulip to me.  These orchids are native to the forest floor in the cloud forest of  South America.

I believe this is a Masdevallia species, as is the one below.  Masdevallia orchids are native from Mexico to Brazil, but are especially common in the cloud forests of Central and South America.  There are over 500 species, with many more unclassified as of yet.

The following is likely a Dendrobium species, but I do not know for certain.  What I do know is that it had a wonderful scent.

 I do know what the next orchid is.  It is an Asian lady's slipper, Paphiopedilium spp.,one of many.  I used to grow one, but I managed to kill it after a few months.  That was the only orchid I have ever tried to grow.  I have set a goal to see at least one native Cypripedium lady's slipper orchid this year.  There's no way on earth I could grow one of those, however, nor would I want to.

There are so many more orchids I have pictures of, but there were many other plants at Lankaster.  I will briefly cover them, after one more unknown orchid receives a picture.  

So many orchids, so little time.  Outside of the orchid building, further up the path, there was a sea of terrestrial bromeliads.

This was extremely impressive,  Even more bromeliads grew on the sides of trees, some quite large, like the one in the back center of the above photo.  There were a few fire ant hills along the path, so we had to be careful where we walked.

There were many insects, but few of them stopped to get their picture taken.  If I had a dime for every one I saw, I'd own the world.  If you look below the leaves of this plant in the above photo, you might see a few green leaves, or rather, parts of leaves.  The leaf-cutter ants are at it again!

I did not have the time to take all the pictures of ferns that I wanted to. Suffice it to say that this is a representative picture of the fern section of the gardens.  Spoiler alert, it was nothing like I had seen the day before, but it was still very impressive.  I believe my family suspects my shade garden is turning into this.

Here's a plant that many of you may not recognize, Musa acuminata.  I can assure you that you know this plant very well, however.  Alright, I'll stop messing with you.  It's the banana tree.  Those green fruits growing along the stalk are unripe bananas.  As a side note, expect the price of bananas to increase sharply in a few years.  About 47% of banana plants are Cavendish bananas, and almost certainly those are the sort you have on your counter right now. They are the kind that most Americans eat.  In Africa and Asia, a devastating fungal wilt which targets Cavendish bananas has decimated farms. When it reaches Central America, as is likely to be the case, banana trees will start dying by the millions.  Thus, go out and have a banana, before they all die.  Now, on to more positive things.  How about ducks?

These are black-bellied whistling ducks, Dendrocygna autumnalis.  This species of duck can be found as far north as Texas, south to Paraguay.  They nest in trees, not unlike the native wood duck. I believe this picture was not taken at the botanical gardens, but I do remember having seen this species in the area. Let's have one last orchid to conclude this post.  I don't recognize this species, either, but I do remember seeing different specimens all over the gardens.  They smell vaguely like coconuts.

 I hope you enjoy the final blog post of my Costa Rica trip.  Next week means I will have a lot more work and a lot less free time, so don't expect me to post as often as I have been.  Here's a tease for next time...