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MEXICAN PLANTS & ANIMALS HOME
Excerpts from Jim Conrad's
Naturalist Newsletter
from the March 20, 2011 Newsletter issued from Hacienda Chichen Resort beside Chichén Itzá Ruins, central Yucatán, MÉXICO; limestone bedrock, elevation ~39m (~128ft), ~N20.676°, ~W88.569°
ENCYCLIA ORCHID FLOWERING
For months I've awaited the flowering of a certain colony of orchids growing ten feet up the trunk of a giant Piich tree near the hut. The orchids look like a big clump of grass sprouting from the tree, and this week they're flowering, as you can see below:
The white flowers are small, only about 1-¼ inches long (3cm). Still, they display a typical orchid shape, with a frilly lip serving admirably as a landing pad for visiting pollinators, as you can see in a shot taken from above a flower below:
This is ENCYCLIA NEMATOCAULON, sometimes known as the Thread-stemmed Encyclia. It's native from Mexico to Nicaragua, and Cuba, specializing in growing on trees in lowland scrub and tropical deciduous forest, like ours.