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...

Brief Update- Oh, Deer.

 I will interrupt my Costa Rica series with a brief update.  I was out driving New Year's Day along Lake Springfield on Woodland Trail Drive.  There is a wildlife area with a large deer population along this road, which lies between Springfield and Chatham.  While I was driving and unable to photograph anything, I did spot forty-seven deer and six turkeys.  This is a new personal record for the most deer seen at once, with the previous record of around thirty set at the same spot.  I highly recommend driving through if you live in the area.   Comment below what you see when driving along this road.

Costa Rica, Part Three of Five: Ziplining/Addendum - Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2016! Continuing last year's series, I went ziplining in Costa Rica. (See CHBC Costa Rica for more details.)  We had to hike up part of a mountain with the maturing Dr. R------ (the person who took the above picture)  and his wife, Mrs. R-----, who the day before had narrowly missed breaking a bone falling down another hill.  Needless to say, it was a difficult hike for them.  We had time on the hike to stop in spots to wait for the others.  I took a picture of this ground-dwelling orchid/monocot with its unusual leaves.  I assume this is an orchid, but I have no idea.  I saw it in several areas, including the dark stream valley below camp.  If anyone has any knowledge of this plant's identity, please, please, please let me know.  It's one of those little things that bothers me every so often.

We had a very fun time ziplining.  I am not a person whom enjoys extreme sports, and thankfully,  sliding down a thin cable over a hundred feet above the ground is not nearly as extreme as it sounds. There were thirteen stages, spread throughout the mountain's slope.  I had to leave my camera in my bag for most of the time, however, so I did not photograph much.  A tiny, unidentified lizard was one of the discoveries I made hiking between  I discovered a new species of nettle whilst reaching to examine a millipede.  The discovery was quite a sudden surprise, and I remembered it the rest of the day whenever I brushed that part of my arm against walls and such.   There is a reason they are called stinging nettles...

(Above photo credit Dr. R------)  I was not fond of one particular section.  I was lowered from what was essentially  a chain metal fence stuck sideways on a tree down a hundred feet into a canyon.  It was just as scary as it sounds. You can see the platform in the above picture, and if you look carefully just below the center of the picture, you can see the rope.  At the bottom of the canyon were a large number of mosquitoes as well as a small creek with a cascade about fifteen feet high.

That was roughly the end of ziplining, and we went on to La Paz Waterfall Gardens, which I have decided to write about as the grand finale, because it was so beautiful.  Thus, next post will be about Lankaster Botanical Gardens.   However, before I wrap this up, I have decided to add an addendum, aka explain what Mimosa pudica, Sciurus variegatoides, and Pitangus sulphuratus are, if you haven't looked them up (and I know you haven't, because no one ever does...)  Additionally, I saw a neat moth  the night before we left Costa Rica, and I have no place to put it.  So here it is.

This insect remarkably imitated a bath in both size and wing shape.  It is the second largest moth I have ever seen, and the largest I have ever photographed (I saw a luna moth, Actias luna, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, that was possibly larger, but as I was six at the time, I did not have a camera.)  If anyone has any clue as to what species this moth is, please let me know.  It reminds me of a poplar hawk moth (Laothoe populi), and it could be in the same genus or family.

On to Mimosa pudica, the sensitive plant.  This is a tropical weed, found as far north as Georgia,  Indeed, I have a picture of one, taken in the Line Creek area of Peachtree City, Georgia, discussed in several previous blog posts.

The notable feature of the sensitive plant is that its foliage folds up when touched, hence the name.  In Costa Rica, these are referred to as sleeping plants for the same reason.  The foliage folds up at night and when touched, unfolding in roughly an hour.  I received seeds of this plant for Christmas, and I look forward to growing it.  (UPDATE- They never sprouted.)

Variegated squirrels, Sciurus variegatoides, were also seen in Costa Rica.  These are the most colorful squirrels I have ever seen.  Other than the colors, these are essentially just squirrels.

While there were occasionally parrots and once a toucan, as well as many swallows, the most notable bird was the Great Kiskadee Flycatcher, Pitangus sulphuratus, ranging as far north as central Texas and found everywhere in Costa Rica.  These are large noisy birds the size of a blue jay that flew around and caught insects everywhere.  I had no idea what they were at the time.  These are relatives of our local flycatcher species, albeit far more colorful.

That's all for now.  Happy New Year!  I hope 2016 will be an excellent year for nature, and by corollary, nature bloggers.  As a tease of the next blog post, Lankaster Gardens, this plant is one that you should recognize from your kitchen: