Cloud Forest Orchid

It seems like this may be Costa Rica Orchid week at the blog. And there are still more Haworthias coming in the afternoons too.

We saw a whole lot of blooming orchids on our recent trip to Costa Rica. Here we start with one up in the Cloud Forests of Monteverde. There will be more. Of course most of my orchid bloom photos did not come into focus since the flowers can be so small and the plants are way up in the trees and I didn’t have a tripod with me. And more than that, no names are provided since I haven’t a clue which of the many hundreds of native orchids this is.

Peperomia rotundifolia has a number of common names, including Yerba Linda and creeping peperomia, creeping buttons, royal velvet plant, and my favorite the Radiator Plant. So you can tell that this is a well travelled plant.

Here we see a fully blooming specimen creeping along a tree branch  in it’s original habitat high up in the Cloud Forests of Costa Rica, although it’s range runs from Mexico to Brazil. My book also says it can be found in Tanzania, but that can’t be right.

Agave angustifolia

This Costa Rican native grows to anywhere from 3 to 6 ft. across, and is very popular in cultivation for its colorful marginated and variegated varieties. Here we see one in its native habitat – a sunny field. Let’s romp.

Hylocereus costaricensis

Now that’s a lot of cactus hanging off that branch. Strong branch, I hope.

In this lovely grouping of epiphytic plants, we see a cactus which is clearly a Hylocereus (probably H. costaricensis), a blooming Tillandsia (Oy they’re so bright – my eyes!), and a very happy orchid, species unknown.

I think we could all learn a lesson from these plants about living together and sharing. Here we have 3 very different species sharing a branch on a tree, slowly killing it off, together. Teamwork.

We’re not sure what cactus this is that we found in the rain forests of Costa Rica, more specifically in Manuel Antonio NP, but it sure is impressive.

It is broad and flat like an epiphyllum, but long and pendulous like a selenicereus. Definitely not hylocereus. Maybe rhipsalis – they can be flat and long and pendulous, but they’re not usually that broad. If only we had gotten close enough to see any evidence of flowering. Damn jungle.

Oh my god, it’s a dioscorea! I think it may be the very same Dioscorea discolor that we carry at the nursery! But then, there are 24 species of dioscorea found in Costa Rica, and it is grown around the world for its edible yam-like tubers. Did I say yam-like? I meant yams. Anyway, D. discolor is a succulent caudiciform, so what are ya’ gonna do?

Tillandsia blooms. These look remarkably like the Tillandsia ionantha blooms we get at thre nursery. And T. ionantha is from the central american rain forest. So maybe, just maybe, we have identified a tillandsia species found on our recent trip to Costa Rica.

On the other hand, the rosette is probably too big to be T. ionantha. But it sure is pretty.

Do you kinow how many species of tillandsias there are? Why, there are 400. And if you include all the epiphytic bromeliads, then I believe you’d have at least some more than that, even.

A lovely bright red tillandsia. Looking at this picture, I feel that I must have placed this plant on that branch, for how otherwise could it have come to rest in such a picturesque fashion? Alas, it is merely the workings of the Central American rain forest in action.

People ask us, did we see any wildlife in the rain forests of Costa Rica? Sure, plants, whatever, but animals? Monkeys?

Here’s a nesting pair of Scarlet Macaws that were flying around above our heads for a while. Finally I caught them resting on a branch long enough.

It’s another Hylocereus costaricensis as seen in Carrara NP.

I don’t know if it’s such a good idea to be standing under a cactus like that.

Hylocereus costaricensis

This was the first hylocereus we saw in the jungle, the cactus in the jungle being quite epiphytic, high up in the trees. The jungle cactus I’m sure were denser up higher, but yet the cactus in the jungle didn’t quite form a cactus jungle at all.

Selenicereus testudo

Of course we were looking for jungle cactus among the rain forests of Costa Rica on our recent trip there, and we were not disappointed. It may not have been cactus bloom season, but it was interesting to find cactus in the parks where everyone else was looking up in the trees for monkeys. We would stop and look up and I would aim the camera up, and then others nearby would wonder what kind of monkeys we had sighted. Hah! No monkey, just cactus.

Anyway, my inability to absolutely, positively identify these specimens doesn’t stop me from affixing a label anyway.

A closeup after the break. Read More…

This is my best shot yet of the Epiphyllum pittieri in the Costa Rican rain forest. This was hanging high up in the trees, probably 40 feet up, and sometimes my camera just comes through even though I didn’t have a tripod. You can really see the way the cactus hangs off the trunk, and just hangs around, droopily. Very healthy looking; deep green color. Just imagine the blooms, because I have no pictures for you of these spectacular flowers. Something about the season. But just wait ’til I get to the orchid photos – there are always orchids blooming in the Costa Rican rain forests if you look closely enough. And we found them by the boatloads up in the cloud forest.

Ipomoea carnea

It’s a woody vine with spiny morning-glory flowers. Seems to grow throughout Central Americ. Impressive large flowers.

Join us after the break for a closeup. Read More…

Epiphyllum pittieri

You can really see this giant hanging epihanging pendulously from the tree, and climbing way up to the top of the tree too. A very successful plant. Some day we hope to go back to Costa Rica when the epi’s are in bloom. Won’t that be spectacular?

We found these little blooming Begonias hanging onto some concrete steps along a trail in Carrara NP in Costa Rica. We like the little wild begonias, although we sell more of the large frilly begonias. Same flowers, though; very little variation in size or shape.

It’s the most adorable little baby Begonia. Begonia species are nearly impossible to identify, so I won’t even try. And most of the begonias we came upon in Costa Rica were in bloom, but this one was so photogenic even without the flowers that it had to be shared.

Another Epiphyllum pittieri hanging off a tree. This one is very green and healthy looking, but not too big. It hasn’t yet completely overtaken the trunk.

Another Epi from the Costa Rican Jungle at Manuel Antonio.

Epiphyllum pittieri
The plant is not looking it’s greenest, but then it is the dry season. Although even in the dry season we had quite a bit of afternoon rain. Even if not the prettiest specimen, it is a very productive plant, climbing up a pretty substantial part of that trunk. But we didn’t see too many of the cactus hanging around. There were way more bromeliads. But we did see more cactus nonetheless.

It’s a whole outcropping of Tillandsias. I have no guess for species, but these were very common in the tropical jungles of Costa Rica on our trip.

Jungle Cactus in Costa Rica.

I’m going with Epiphyllum costaricense, but without blooms it can be hard to know for sure.

That’s a huge amount of Epi hanging off that tree. You don’t often see true species epi’s in cultivation, since they’ve been cross-bred for the flowers so much over the years.

A closer-up picture after the break. Read More…