I thought this was interesting.
https://longwoodgardens.org/bl...

Reminds me a good deal of the Ghost Orchid of South Florida!

Tons of research going on there regarding Mycorhyzal (sp) fungi and native orchid species. Most of that work is being done by Illinois College students during their month long internships every July. They have been collecting orchid root material, growing the fungi associated with each orchid species, identifying it, cataloging it and publishing the information gathered.
It seems so many orchids have a very limited association with a particular fungus that enables them to grow. Without the fungus, the orchid does not grow.
The Naples Orchid Society members through their generosity and the students with their hard work have done a great deal to help re-establish native Florida orchids who have long been missing from their native habitats.
I have been told by several 'natives' to the Tampa area that Encyclia tampensis was once very common in the Tampa/St. Pete area. Thousands of plants could be readily found on the mainland and its neighboring islands. Now all gone. Mostly gone due to habitat destruction and overzealous collection.
This is another species targeted for reintroduction.

How cool is that! Good link, Alice!!

Bill, wasn't also Epidendrum ilense one of the species reintroduced?

Thank you for sharing this! Very, very interesting!!

Great article, thanks!

I don't recall Epidendrum iliense. I don't know if that was native to Florida off hand.

2 others that I recall were the cigar or cow horn orchid. The name escapes me at the moment. It is in the Oncidium Alliance and is on the brink of extinction in Florida. The second, and it is an Epidendrum, is Epidendrum nocturnum.

Fascinating article! Thanks for sharing!

Cyrtopodium punctatum is the cigar orchid or cow horn orchid.
Epidendrum iliense is South American from the Andean foothills.

Great article. The warning at the end is interesting but, I see a sudden depleting of the woods by people harvesting orchids they have no chance of growing.

We have several terrestrial Orchids growing at our place in NE Pennsylvania. We are very careful not to give out the locations, except to some very select people. ( not lately, there is simply no interest) But, I find there is little danger of people eradicating ours, they simply would not easily find some of the stands since they are well hidden amongst vegetation and others would make their eyes glaze over from boredom at the sheer mentioning that they exist.

One thing I should mention - it is not a good idea to always make the same path while visiting some Orchid stands in the forest. Deer will simple follow the path we might have created and while doing so decimate any Orchid in the process. Years ago we found 1 plant in spike in the middle of our forest. In our excitement we created exactly one of those paths, so we realized in retrospect. Next visit, the plant was mostly eaten, except for two little blooms which turned out to be most likely Platanthera orbiculata. Unfortunately the plant never came back, we checked every year....

deer! Good warning Ursula, who would have thought?????

Alice, through the years we protected many Orchids with a cage fashioned from chicken wire.
As beautiful as Deer are, they are deadly to many wildflowers. If you place a larger circle of chicken wire into the middle of the woods, you will be amazed at the appearance of "value-plants"! Some of our Cyp acule stands are in back of somewhat rickety old stonewalls. Deer don't like to cross them, good for the plants.

I can see them eating the tender wildflowers, so many are edible, but for some reason orchids just don't look tasty to me.

I used to walk the 46 acres of the marsh preserve I managed in attempt to check on Clapper rail breeding success back in the 90's. Also known as a marsh hen!!
It took me about 2 years before I, and my staff realized that the increased rate of Clapper rail predation was due to raccoons following our tracks and scent to the nests. We estimated 80% were predated that second year! Thank God that we humans realized before we did more harm to the rails that this breeding survey had to stop.
We went to the neutral method of binoculars, cameras and spotting scopes. We would then take extensive notes and document all chick sightings.

Lots of times animals prove just how stupid us humans can be!

That is amazing Bill. I have learned, the hard way of course, that we have deer in this neighborhood. I have never seen them though and we used to see them all hours of the day at our last home. They and the raccoons had regular and very visible paths through the marsh grass in SC and I have not seen any clear paths here on FL for them.