Rainy Day ORCHID GARDEN Tour in MONTEVERDE, COSTA RICA

So we're out here in Costa Rica and Monte Verde, and we are actually here at this orchid garden. And I was here earlier and Andres gives tours here. Can you tell me a little bit about you and how long you've been doing tours here? Yeah, well, I've been working here for nine years already. And yeah, so basically it's a tourist to teach about the wild orchids we have in Costa Rica, around a thousand six hundred species. And well, in Monte Verde, about five hundred, six hundred species, which is about a third of all of those. Well, you have a lot. It says four hundred fifty plus species. Exactly. Yeah, we have a lot in the garden and then average there's about one hundred, twenty, one hundred thirty in bloom every day. So we go around and show the orchids. Mostly we show them. We include the guide because there's a lot that are very tiny, hidden, very miscible orchids, too. Very different looking to typical commercial orchids, too. So that's why we do the tours. Amazing. Let's go in and check it out. I'd love to see. And it was funny. I was here earlier and you're already saying, like, I don't want you to miss some of the smaller ones. I was like deep in conversation with my other friend catching up, but I'll see how many I actually missed on the way. Perfect. Yeah. Yeah, basically, though, the way the garden has been kind of built around a lot of the trees were here, but we started replanting the orchids if they fell from a tree or a branch or any, let's say, a tree that people were cutting down in the forest. My boss has a legal rescue research permit. That's basically how he started the collection. He's been replanting them, helping them continue. So if the tree falls down, there's an orchid on it. He's able to actually take that orchid and plant it here then. Technically, there's still like a whole process. We have to report to the authorities and all that. But yeah, basically they are mostly epiphyte or air plant. So they naturally grow on trees. They are not parasites. They don't take anything from the tree at all. So they're using it just as a support. Some orchids grow in soil. But yeah, the most of them are these kinds on the trees. And there's you know, I already see some here like these little those white ones right there. So those are kind of hidden in there. Yeah, you can kind of see. Yeah. Then I just noticed a few more back here. Oh, sure. Yeah. So, for example, the green one here just camouflages very easily. That's a common one that people miss all the time. Yeah, it almost looks like it's part of the leaf or part of the leaf. Like this group, for example, these are Epidendrum. The Epidendrum orchids, they have a lot of similarities in common. But this specific one is called Corifolium. That's basically like a leather leaf. Leather leaf. Like Cuero in Spanish, the Corifolium. Yeah, the leaf, if you look just behind it, it's a very succulent leaf, too. It's green, too, because it's pollinated at night. I guess the color isn't really too necessary. I saw a couple of green ones in here. Obviously, these have a little bit of yellow. But these right here, they look fresher and they look green. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I guess the ones that are a bit more yellowish, they're actually older, maybe losing fertility or pollinated. So they change color. And that's a common thing in a lot of flowers. They might even change color as a effort of attracting insects to the flowers that are still young and fertile. So these look older and less attractive. Interesting. It's like a sign saying out of service, go to the next. Now, I know we're going to see orchids, but I wanted to point out this Aristolochia because I think this is one of the largest is the largest flower in Costa Rica. Or is it not? Technically, yes, there's actually a few botanists kind of investigating if it really is native or not, because Aristolochia is native. This specific species, there's history that it might have been brought in. Oh, fascinating. If not, it is the biggest flowering plant of Costa Rica. These and I guess you could see some hanging out there. Yeah, these are small. They can actually grow over this size. They look so alien like. They do. And they stink. They attract flies for pollinators. They could smell like rotting meat. Rotting meat. And they look like rotting meat, you know? They do. So this tree actually has lots of these different orchids. Notice those. Maybe my favorite to point out here is this miniature that always blooms under its own leaf. Unbelievable. That's a full blooming adult orchid. Never gets any bigger. So this is called Lepantes. The Lepantes orchids, these are commonly, well, either underneath or on the top of the leaf. But a lot of times just protected from heavy winds and rains. Because sometimes the pleurothallus orchids will come out of the tip, too. You know what I mean? There's actually an easy small difference, and that is the little bracts that they have in the middle right there. Oh, I see. The pleurothallus orchids, lots of them basically have just like a normal thin stem and then the leaf. Yeah, that's actually the main difference. I think they were considered pleurothallus a long time ago. What's this purple one? Because I saw this. It was all throughout the garden. Yeah, this is in that same group, Epidendrum. But this species might just be the most common one in Monteverde. Oh, really? You'll see in trees near the roadsides. Yeah, a lot of these have a common name, but a lot of their common names can change, I guess, depending on the country or place. Yeah, I mean, some of the common names for the trees and the plants here are not necessarily what we would we would call them either. So exactly. Yeah. The Sobralias, these are one day orchids. Their flowers open up and die the exact same day. And this would be the same one. But oh, yeah, that's yesterday's flower. Yeah. Yeah, they're constantly growing new flowers, but each flower does open up and die quickly. Yeah, there's a bud. So that's an example of the ones that are about to come. One was pollinated there. So you can see the seed pod developing. Ah, yes. Nice. Do you have a tendency here to like cross pollinate? Because I know some people get involved in that as well. Actually, because these are native to Monteverde, they do naturally get their pollinators. And we kind of just let that happen to let the wind spread the seeds. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get someone in there. You want to come in? That's cool. And you get you're going to get our tour with us. Yeah, he's on. He's in our group, actually. You are perfect. Perfect. And yeah, so I guess we can continue also showing this one here. This one's well, I just take a quick look right there. The well, the orchid flowers, every single species of orchid in the world has the exact same flower structure. That's something I always like to emphasize. There's always three sepals, which are basically just behind protecting the flower and three petals attracting the pollinators. Always one of the petals looks different. In this case, it's the smallest one. So three behind, three in front. One looks different. Visually, that is almost the only way to know that you're looking at an orchid. And I always like to mention it with these ones, because petals and sepals look about the same. For some orchids, the sepals behind are really different to the petals in front. But there's still always the one different one. If I just saw this hanging here, dangling here, it wouldn't have looked like an orchid to me until you actually lifted it up like that. And you see the little like lip, the labellum in there and everything like that. But if you just were looking at that, you wouldn't you wouldn't think anything of it. Exactly. And then there's also this one here. Well, lots of these hang down. And that's so the wind moves them and spreads perfume further, too. And so rain doesn't even, let's say, get into them, touch them too much. So it's almost like an upside down umbrella, like an upside down umbrella. Exactly. Yeah, and then there's those tiny ones on there, too. And is that the same one that you had showed us over there? It's one of the Lepantes. I forget the species, the full name for this one, but it's in that same group. These are Más de Valle. These are actually miniature versions. Más de Valle are somewhat commercial and professional botanical gardens. Not so much in stores, of course, but they're these are really tiny Más de Valle compared to the ones people might know about. But common here, as a native orchid, those are really common. And this one's here, the Acronia orchids, they always grow these sort of heart-shaped leaf with flowers right on the top. See, this is what kind of reminds me how the Pluritalis grows. So what's different about them? Actually, that's the thing. If you know of the Pluritalis kinds that grow a long stem with many flowers that kind of look like lilies of the valley. Right. Those are the ones that apparently have stayed under the name Pluritalis. And these ones, which were Pluritalis, were the ones changed into the Acronia. The ones with these heart-shaped leaf with flower on them. OK, so it's like a recent name change, too. I see. Well, they're always changing the name. They are, all the time. Yeah, that's one thing I'm actually kind of taking pictures, classifying a lot of the orchids we find in Costa Rica in the garden. And I try to keep them with the scientific name and keep them updated. But every now and then I find out about the name changes, too. So, yeah, it's kind of hard to keep track. Yeah. Yeah. Again, a lot of these were basically replanted right out of a fallen tree. We basically tie them with any string that can stretch even old clothes and stuff. Yeah, I see a lot of people using nylon in botanic gardens. I don't know, like basically ladies pantyhose. So that's maybe the best one to use. First, it camouflages well and it also stretches really well. Yeah, and stays for a while. Stays for a while. So it's maybe the best one to use to actually plant an orchid with. Mostly also it decomposes. So I guess if it's been enough time and the orchid has attached roots, it could decompose and snap and rot on its own. Right. If you have forgotten to even cut that string yourself. So that works. Now, what are these? Are these? Oh, those are pluritalis. These are pluritalis. OK, see, that's kind of so they have the multiple ones coming out. Multiple flowers in a stem. Yeah, they're so delicate. They have had these name changes that we were mentioning, but well, they have the common names. Mostly the miniatures don't have a common name because a lot of locals don't recognize or remember them. But as a common name, a lot of these are still just called pluritalis. Some people just know them by that name. Right. And so they lump them all together, even though, you know, maybe they need they need some taxonomic ranking, you know. And I do believe a lot of them really do need some taxonomical. Yeah. Or even genetic study done to them. Yeah. Those are also in that Mazda Valia. Yeah. Are some of the Mazda Valias the ones that look like little monkeys? Which ones are those? So those are called Dracula. That's Dracula. Technically, another recent name change. A lot of people already know them as Dracula, but they were considered Mazda Valia. I could see some of the similarities within them. But yeah, I'm not sure. Basically, consider them. It looks like a bell shaped flower that barely opens up a little bit. That's a typical thing with Mazda Valias. OK. Yeah, the monkey flowers are really open. Very wide open. Yeah, very wide open. And we do have lots of miniature orchids on the bonsai trees. I see that. It's unbelievable how small you have. You could put a lot of a lot in a little bit of space. Actually, that's one of the things that helps out by having these miniature orchids, because I guess if it's just big orchids, you could have a big collection, but you need a big space. Exactly. For a miniature orchid, you could really have hundreds of them in just a small space and not have to worry too much about that. So what's this one that's kind of hanging down like I've ever seen? That's Epidendrum laucianum, I think. This kind actually grows these long stems. Oh, you can see right there. The plant is all the way back there. I've seen them longer even. I think they can range down to even half a meter long. Not just counting the flowers, but the whole thing. Yeah. These are somewhat common here. I like to mention, too, when I say common, some of these are common in the deep forest in Monteverde, in dense areas, tall trees. So only if you climb up every single tree, you would realize they are common. But if not, you would think they're rare. Right. So that's a thing with a lot of these orchids here. And oftentimes when we're walking in the forest, you're only seeing what you see at eye level. So exactly. Yeah. That's funky, too. But this looks really thin, you know, it's like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. These are Specklinia. These are closely related to those pleurotalli orchids. There's actually something with these ones where the sepals are really large and then the petals are very tiny way in there. So a lot of times people miss them or miss their parts and actually don't recognize them. This one's actually somewhat rare. I do remember people showing me pictures of these near the Monteverde Reserve or other places. But it's the fact that I've only very rarely seen people show me pictures because they just saw it in bloom and maybe saw it was an interesting flower, took a picture, didn't realize it was an orchid. And it's maybe the first time we got one of these to bloom in the garden, too. Really? So which one is this then that's rare? So actually, let me remember. It was also just recently name changed. The old name is Warzewiczela Pichta or Coquillantes Pichta. That's another previous name. It's in a group of orchids called Coquillantes. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The thing is, like if you if this is not in bloom, how would you even tell that this is an orchid based on the leaves? Can you? Here's the thing. Arguably, yes. If you are botanically aware enough of the orchids or plants, sorry, that grow in one place, you could learn enough about the other plants to rule them out. So what's left is an orchid. Right. That kind of sounds super difficult. But at the same time, if you learn just a little bit between how to differentiate monocot and dicot plants. Right. That one's actually more or less simple with the vein patterns in the leaves. Now, the only two kinds of monocot plants that grow in Costa Rica's trees are bromeliads and orchids. And if you rule out bromeliads, because they almost always look like the pineapple leaf shape. So basically, the only monocot plants that grow in Costa Rican trees are more or less orchids, maybe a few others, but I guess not as common. So if it's a dicot plant, you could just rule it out. So, for example, and I think I actually have a good example right here. So this is a dicot plant and a dicot plant. Generally, they have a vein in the center of the leaf, branching out from right to left, alternating vein pattern. Monocots tend to have these parallel veins that go down the same direction. So if it's parallel veins, possibly orchid. If it's not parallel veins, definitely not an orchid. So you could rule all those epiphyte plants out. Fascinating. So is this an example of the one that used to be maybe in a pleurothalis, but is no longer in a pleurothalis? Exactly. The Acronia orchids. And I'm operating on like old antiquated orchid knowledge of like thinking that's a pleurothalis and then it's been changed. Exactly. But I wouldn't be surprised if they change it back again, too. So you're thinking that this is a pleurothalis? Is it coming out? OK, so it has the multiple flowers on that. Fascinating. OK. But also a lot of pleurothalis that have these long stem with flowers had been called stellis earlier. But then the stellis back in time were also pleurothalis. So again, those constant name changes. Right. Pleurothalis pilostoma. Oh, no, that's actually the name for this one. Yeah, that's the pleurothalis. Yeah, that's a different one. These are called locartia. People tend to call these the cactus orchids. They kind of I see that. Yeah. Like a Christmas cactus. Yeah, like a Schlumberger or something like that. And there is a few right here, too. Also with that Acronia group, just flower right on the leaf. Right. For the Acronias, this might be maybe the biggest blooming one, at least in Costa Rica. Yeah. Yeah, so that one looks really neat right there. And just that's beautiful. I saw that this one earlier, it almost looks like like a bridal veil or something like lacy. Actually, locals call it the chicken feather orchids. Oh, that's a good name for it. It's Epidendrum ciliare. The curious thing. Ciliare, yeah. Ciliate. Exactly. Yeah. These ones are pollinated at night, too, by moths. It actually really smells at night. You can actually tell the perfume in the night. I know a lot of the white ones because they reflect in the moonlight or whatever like that. It generally has a night blooming pollinator. That and if you think about it, a lot of the ones pollinated at night are not the most colorful orchids, which makes sense. They wouldn't waste energy in a bright color if pollinated at night. Yeah. So yeah, that and the patterns that they use. I think I do remember hearing about even ultraviolet colored orchids. Like it's been very understudied, but there's people who have studied that. And that's a curious part. So technically, yeah, there's ultraviolet colored orchids. There's many colors in orchids in general. Arguably, there's the two colors you don't find in orchids. And I say it's arguable. You'll hear people people arguing about it all the time. But first, black orchids. Technically, black is the absence of color. So arguably, yeah, there's no black panther, no black, no black iris. But any of those famous black orchids are just very dark. Dark purples or something. So you take a petal, you put it against the light and maybe you see like the outline is like a dark red or purple or brown. So apparently, yeah, no black orchids. But then there's no blue orchids. And there is a blue is a very rare color. Very rare in the wild. There is a lot of orchids called blue orchids that are either dyed, commercially dyed or pigmented and or a wild orchid that has tones of purple and white that I guess as a visual effect could look blue. So I do think I remember hearing about the blue vanda, which is an Asian species, but it's technically not even purely blue when you're looking at it. And then sometimes they Photoshop it to the point where they're like, it's not really that blue. Exactly. That makes sense. They just try to make a sale. Speaking of the commercial orchids, I've seen people spray paint an orchid to sell it. Yeah. So then there's that too. Yeah. Now, back to colors. This one is naturally yellow and you can see white versions around it. So that's two separate plants of the same species. Oh, interesting. Well, it looks like it's a slightly different leaf too. Like this thing is a little thinner and more cupped. Yeah. Not too wide open. But you can kind of see that one too with the light. Oh, I see. Yeah. So apparently that's albinism or at least semi-albinism even. So it's the same species, but it just becomes albino or has a different color. Yeah. And we actually find albinism. It's still rare in plants, I guess, as much as it could be in animals. But it's more common than you would think. I guess you see an albino animal and you know it's albino. But when you're seeing an albino flower, you could just take for granted that it's just naturally white. Yeah. So, yeah, that's one of the things we like to emphasize. Mas de Valia casei. This one is endemic to Monteverde. So found only in this mountain. Nice. Now that one has a slightly more open face, but not as open as the monkey face. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and I just noticed this almost missed it. That's the Lepantes monteverdensis, also endemic to Monteverde. I actually remember my boss planted them together. I didn't realize that was blooming. It looks like a little pink jewel. It does. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of these Lepantes are really tiny, really hidden ones. Yeah. And we have orchids growing on plastic pipes to prove to the people in the tour that the orchids don't need a living tree. Not a parasite. Yeah. And mostly to locals. Locals really call them parasites. Any plant, even if they know it might not be. I noticed we went to Katia and he said even bromeliads, people consider them parasites. And I was like, well, in the U.S., I don't think we consider them parasitic. Like, you know, but I guess it's a cultural thing, maybe. So I think in Latin America, what has happened is that a lot of people take the term parasite not as an actual like plant taking nutrients from a tree, but just as the common name of these plants growing on the trees. I see. It's like the parasites. Yeah. But yeah, that's I guess that could lead to confusion and mistakes, too. I've seen people cutting down trees because they're full of parasites and maybe none of them are actually parasites. That's kind of sad, too. Yeah. Yeah. And these are steles. The steles orchids are actually very common here. Very, how do you say, misclassified all the time. This is the same, right? Exactly. Yeah. Look, I think we could easily have over 20 different steles species in the garden, and I really cannot tell you the full name for all of the steles. Maybe a lot of these other pluritales or miniatures, but the steles are complicated. This one's a curious kind. The zootropion orchids, these apparently barely bloom. If not, they just stay close like that and self-pollinate. So a lot of self-pollinate. There is like a whole I don't know if it's like a like a population of them that self-pollinates. And I guess if they self-pollinate and that becomes their trade and they kind of grow clones of themselves through those seeds, those might also self-pollinate. So it creates a whole population which could be endangered very easily by a bacterial fungus. The whole thing could just go out because they're almost kind of clones of each other. Right. That's interesting that they barely open. I guess the ones that do barely open up could still cross-pollinate. Uh-huh. The fruit flies and other bugs. Yeah, I was going to say, what are the tiny little thrips or little gnats or something like that? Exactly. Yeah. We've seen mosquitoes pollinate some of our orchids, cockroaches pollinating orchids. So as weird as you could think, the bug is they might pollinate a lot. Yeah. And hummingbirds do pollinate a few, but it's mostly bugs in our case. Just about to bloom. This actually we will see in bloom in just a minute here, but this is of a group called onsidium. Onsidium. I say that that seems pretty common around here. I've seen a lot of onsidium. It is common. Yeah, it is common, but it's what locals call them the gold rain orchids. Right. Or dancing ladies. Dancing ladies. The lip kind of looks like a dress. Yeah. The interesting part is almost all dancing lady or onsidium, sorry, in Costa Rica are yellowish to a point where a lot of locals just think it's the exact same species. All the same species. Exactly. And we actually have different ones, which is maybe my favorite part. There's locals who truly believe they have onsidium species that bloom all year round and they don't realize it's a different plant, different species taking turns. I see. One after another, different weeks and months. So technically in Costa Rica, we don't have a time of year to see more or less blooming orchids. But because some orchids will be way more recognizable than others. Locals think we have seasons. Maybe there's the season of the showiest or the season of the less showy orchids. Also, arguably, the season with the least showy orchids is the rainy season, which I'm thinking just most people don't go out to the forest in the rainy season and then don't see much flowers. So I guess it's just the fact that people are not actively looking for them. Right. How about these? We've seen these in the wild that have like a little bit more of like a hand shape, you know, like the shape or tail. These ones were considered maxillaria in the past, and right now they have the genus called heterotaxi, I think. The heterotaxi, yeah, they always have like this hand shape, claw shape thing and they bloom. They can grow small flowers, but they grow them pretty much just at the base of the plant, and it's like a small yellow flower. Oh, interesting. If I see one in bloom, I'll point it out. But I don't know if we do have those in bloom today. And yeah, the Oncidium. Ah, here's another Oncidium. So do you know what this species means? Yeah, Oncidium stenotes. And this specific one I hear is used to make hybrids. Although in the wild, we do get wild hybrids between orchids, sometimes not too successful, of course, and it's not even too often. But you can get wild hybrids. The interesting part, the reason it's not actually that common is that almost each orchid has its specific pollinator. So it would take that one bug decides to go to two different orchids the same day and cross the pollen. How about this one that's kind of hanging? Oh, yeah. This one, I forget the full name, Mesospinidium. I think Wartsewixie, I could be wrong. But this is one of those that is hard to identify. There's a whole group of orchids we have between the Oncidium, Mesospinidium, Ivochilus, Goniochilus, lots of different genuses that all almost look the same. And it's like, did they actually know to divide them in those different genuses or they just all misclassified them and they are still today stuck in those different genes? Or you just need like some electron microscope to like, look at the little parts, you know? Exactly. That's one thing I always mention. There are orchids that are separated as different species. And you think they are exactly the same. Why are they even different species? Well, even distribution is the exact same time of year blooming. But it could be microscopic details that you're not seeing. Here's one of the ones that look like the cactus orchid that's blooming and one has a little fruit. Oh, the seed pod there. Seed pod, yeah. Yeah, eventually those open up. And again, we let the wind spread the seeds too. Oh, and the yellow one here, this is in the Maxillaria group. These ones, they always get this flexible petal. That's where the name Maxillaria comes from, like the maxillar bone, the jaw. And yeah, it's like a trampoline. When bees land here fast enough, they'll jump and hit their head with a pollen. So that's part of the trick with the Maxillaria. It looks really fleshy as a flower, a fleshier flower. Actually, this species is Maxillaria angusti segmenta, like thick segments or like wide segments, basically. That's what it means. And this one, I think we did see this before, but there's many of them around the garden, too, that we've actually kind of spread equally throughout. I think maybe it's because of all the rain. It almost looks glassy. Do you think it's just too much rain that's gotten on them? It could be. I've seen that happen with a lot of these orchids where the petals start looking almost transparent, although there are some species that naturally have transparent looking petals. Now, is this another? Oh, that is another Maxillaria. Maxillaria, yeah. I don't know the full name for this one. Yeah, the Maxillaria. You have actually a lot in bloom. Like it's if you just like kind of blur your eyes, it wouldn't seem like there's a lot in bloom, but they're so small that your eyes have to pick them up. Exactly. That's one of the things we always mention that, yeah, without the tour, without the guide, a lot of people actually walk through and miss them. and then he started to include the tours, mostly because the first few years it was just the people going through the garden and then asking, where are the orchids? Where are the orchids? Yeah. We have the greenhouse where we have some of the hybrid typical commercial orchids. And some people would argue, oh, yeah, I just saw five orchids in the greenhouse. And that was all, which in the end, I guess, yeah, makes sense. It's the ones people know. So it's the ones people would expect to see. So, yeah, with all these wild orchids and how different and rare they are, there's orchids in almost every country in the world, but some of them are just so different. In most countries, I'm guessing a lot of those orchids are just seen as normal, random weeds. Yeah. That's one of these Oncidium orchids. I think this is actually a hybrid of Oncidium. Yeah. It's called Cherry Baby, and it smells like chocolate when it's in bloom. Ah, Cherry Baby, I've seen those in the Botanic Gardens. Yes, you're right. And it has a good smell. Yeah, which I think it's funny. I think I don't know if they made the hybrid on purpose to have that perfume or if they enhanced it at all. Right. But there's wild orchids that already smell like that, too. And I think that's the funniest part. I remember hearing about a hybrid somebody made just to make an orchid that stinks because orchid collectors might want one. They didn't realize there's lots of wild orchids that already smell like that. Exactly. I remember hearing about that. At least here in Costa Rica, we have a few that could smell like rotting meat or something good like vanilla or whatever. Exactly. So all, again, for different pollinators. Now, this one looks like a larger one of the ciliata ones. Oh, yeah. Same species, technically. Yeah, it's just sometimes you see like more leaves or more flowers, too. So this is the same species or is it a different species in the same genus? Same species. Yeah. OK. Oh, it's just bigger. Just bigger. Yeah. OK. Maybe it gets more light here or something. We could also have even bigger ones, I think. Yeah. I don't have one in bloom, but there's actually a bigger one in the greenhouse. Curiously, in the greenhouse, the one we have in here, it grows much bigger plants and leaves, much bigger flowering stems, but doesn't bloom as often as the ones outside. Now, why do you have some of these in the greenhouse? Is this just like where you stage some things or they just you just have overflow or a little bit of everything, but mostly the fact that these do prefer drier, less rainy, less humid, and then all those are from rain and cloud forest so that we have lower parts of Costa Rica and Monteverde that are even somewhat dry forest, too. So a lot of these are used to that. And you'll notice very succulent leaves and stems and bulbous orchids here, too. Yeah, exactly. And a few bromeliads and tilandias, too, just I guess for good measure. Show us some of the ones blooming in here, then. So this one is actually maybe the best one to start with. This is endemic, only found in Costa Rica. So it's unique here and it's actually symbolic. It's well, most locals don't know about it, by the way, but it's called the Independence Day orchid, which we celebrate during September 15th. And that's about the time it starts blooming. So it is symbolic. But again, it's endemic. It's endangered. So it's rare and not many people know about it. And it has been endangered for a while out of poaching and black markets. But it is coming back. We actually do see more today than we saw like 20 years ago. And this is not your country's flower. It isn't. It isn't. So the national flower of Costa Rica is not blooming now, which that's a plant, for example, but it's blooming during February and March. It's called guaria morada or purple guaria. Guaria in one of these indigenous languages means flower on a tree. The Nahual indigenous plants. Pretty much all flowers on a tree. Pretty much. Exactly. So, by the way, a lot of locals have started using the term guaria as just a synonym for orchids, which makes sense in the end. Yeah. But then the purple guaria, yeah, that's the national one. It looks like that first one day orchid we saw, but with a purple variant. Right. And you could find albino versions of these, which locals call the white guarias. A lot of locals think it's a whole different species. Don't realize it's just the same one born albino. So now, you know, more of the national flower of Costa Rica than most locals of Costa Rica. I'd like to point that out. And again, yeah, this protected endangered one. Yeah. This one isn't native, though. We do have these just as part of a foreign collection. This one is from Asia originally. The dendrobium orchids. These are in general Asian. This one, I've heard people calling it the antelope orchid. Antelope makes sense with this long horn. Like the antenna or horn looking parts. Yeah. This is cool. It looks like an octopus to me. Yes. Actually, some people call it the squid orchid or the black orchid, too. It's a dark purple, but that's one of many black orchids. And is this also native to Costa Rica? So it is technically from Florida to Costa Rica. I think even maybe to Colombia. Could be wrong, but it is from Florida all the way down here. It's Belize's national flower. And Ludicia discolor is blooming, which actually Anthony's trailing behind us. But this kind of reminded me of the flower of that orchid that you saw. It just kind of has a very similar. And this is the example of a terrestrial orchid. Terrestrial, originally European, African. So not even native to the Americas, but commercialized. Yeah. Not a lot, but enough that you could find it. Do you want to bring up? Do you have the picture of your orchid that you want to show him? Maybe he knows how to identify it because it looks it's a terrestrial orchid. It has a green leaf. Anthony's on our on our trip here, so he's trailing behind. I kind of feel like we're we're infringing on his on his tour. But yeah, he saw one. I was like, God, that looks like the flower, the Ludicia discolor. But it's. Oh, yeah. This is Cranichis lancasteri. Cranichis? Yep. Cranichis lancasteri. This one is actually one of these very interesting, rare ground orchids you could find around Monteverde. Oh, that's cool. It's kind of rare. I would say it's maybe not that it's uncommon is the fact that it's rare to see, like rare to notice that you are next to one of them because there could be so many leaves and if this is not flowering, I would be like, how would you know? But you're saying that the lines, you know, you could maybe. Well, I could tell just by the flower. Yes. Because if you didn't see the flower. Oh, yeah. It's like without the flower, it's hard to tell. Yeah. A lot of Cranichis orchids have very similar looking leaves, too. Yeah. And by the way, I think not many people realize or know that, but I guess this is the expected flowering stem shape of orchids because of the ones sold in stores. All the ones sold in stores. But then in the wild, a pyramid or cone shaped flowering stem is actually super common. And I guess it makes sense because it attracts attention from bugs in every direction. Yes. So that's actually very common. Yeah. Cool. Heard of a lot of wild orchids in North America or Europe. They're ground growing orchids that have more of these cone or pyramid shape. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, Phalaenopsis, just to show here, basically, as some of the typical hybrid orchids people expect in general. Right. There are wild Phalaenopsis in Asia, but their hybrid counterparts are what we always see. And the Phalaenopsis that I've seen that are wild are tiny flowers comparatively. There are tiny. Yeah. I do remember seeing an image of a wild Phalaenopsis, but it also was different enough. So it had a big flower, but then the leaves were about this big and this wide. So proportionally, the leaf was also bigger to its flower. So I think it makes sense. When you look at these Phalaenopsis, their leaves look small with the flowers they grow, which, again, could just be part of the hybridizing purpose of making them aesthetically more visible, more showy. Yeah. My boss calls all these the Walmart orchids. The Walmart orchids. That makes sense, though. And all the ones we have, or the most of the ones we have are rescued from trash cans. People thought they were sick or dead or thought they wouldn't re-bloom. Yeah. Just throwing them out. So we brought a few of them back. This is so cute, by the way. Like, look at this little setup here and there. It's like it's really adorable. Exactly. It's very charming and homey. Actually, the balcony and a lot of these parts, we sometimes put orchids in there, but not many of those that are in bloom. So we kind of just leave it as a resting space. Yeah. We call it the monkey's butt or baboon's butt. The baboon's butt? That's so good. Then there's also this one here. I just wanted to point out that it's not blooming, but that's vanilla. Vanilla, they are vines that can grow even 40 meters up around the tree. Big flowers that also can bloom and die the same day, like the one day orchid we saw earlier. I don't know for you. In Costa Rica, we get these a lot. We get a lot of vanilla products, edible products or even things that are vanilla perfumed. There's always a drawing or a picture of an orchid flower, and it's always the wrong orchid. Oh, I don't think I've ever even recognized that. You think it's only in Costa Rica? Maybe that's worldwide. And I think because I nerd out about plants, so I just look into stuff like that. I remember even noticing that with hibiscus tea is my mom was drinking hibiscus. And yeah, I saw the picture, the drawing of it. I thought maybe hibiscus doesn't actually look like that. Yeah, it turns out there's different species of hibiscus. One looks like the one in the box, but it's not the one. It's not the one that they actually use to make the tea. Yeah, yeah. Which makes sense. Yeah, I got knowing about vanilla. That's hilarious. I think it could be aesthetic because the vanilla flower is large, but it's not to show it's very green, white. So maybe they're just putting a colorful one in the picture or a famous one. Yeah, another miniature. That's also of the pleurotallus group. Fascinating that this is now the pleurotallus and the ones that I was thinking, the pleurotallus or the old pleurotallus. Exactly. But now I now I could actually differentiate a bit. Exactly. Yeah. And it's I guess it makes sense. They can there can be overlap or species that look somewhat like a bit of both. Because, again, there's wild hybridization and it's still a large group. I think the pleurotallus is one of the genus of orchids in the world that has the most species is over a thousand species or so. Right. I think dendrobium was near it had about, I think, over a thousand five hundred or so to some of the biggest genus of orchids. Apparently, Bulbophyllum is the biggest over 2000 species. And curiously, Costa Rica just has two Bulbophyllums. I was going to ask how many Bulbophyllums do you have? And are they big or are they kind of small? Actually, very tiny, very tiny. Yep. One of them, it's flowering stem. It's bigger and wider than its flowers. It sounds weird, but it's basically a thick rat looking tail stem. The flowers are like dots in the middle. It kind of looks like, in fact, the flowering stem of a calla lily or an anthurium. Interesting. So does the Bulbophyllum grow in Monte Verde or is it in different areas? Mostly other parts of Costa Rica. So as far as I know, Bulbophyllum hates Monte Verde. OK, because I see them as like, OK, I see them as bigger and thicker. And so maybe it's slightly drier. Yeah, possible. Exactly. And this one isn't native, but we are growing it outside because it works. That's one of the funny parts. It's a foreign orchid. The Celogene orchids, I forget the name, how to even pronounce it. But this is Celogene intermedia. And this is apparently a wild hybrid of that group of orchids, originally from Asia. Intermedia meaning like it's an intermediary between two things? I guess that's what the name means, because it is a wild hybrid. OK. Yeah. And that could have also been a name change when they realized it was a wild hybrid. Because I guess if they thought it was a new species of its own, they could have had a different name for it. Now, I've seen this one. Is this like Arundina graminifolia? I see this planted everywhere. Is this like a native one or is it just like a common landscape plant? So here's the thing. Arundina graminifolia. There's technically only one Arundina species, one accepted one. We call them the bamboo orchids. Yeah. So technically, any bamboo orchid you see around the world is the same one. All originating from the Himalayas, apparently. So this is not even native. Not even native to Costa Rica or even tropics. It's just that resistant to a lot of conditions. And here in Costa Rica, it's not even invasive or problematic. It just grows as if it was another native plant. Almost naturalized. Yeah. And oh, yeah, this one I really like to mention always. The lady slipper orchids. Oh, lady slippers are so paphylopedilums, right? Well, there's paphylopedilum. And these ones are phragmipedium. And there's a few others. But I think there are lady slippers in general from Alaska and Canada through South America, some in Europe, in Asia. I think most of these lady slipper kinds are found between the U.S. and Canada, and Costa Rica just has this one. You saw a yellow lady slipper, didn't you? You want to bring it up? Why don't we bring it up? We've seen so many plants on our walks and some of them are so new. But you actually captured a couple orchids, which was amazing. It's similar. Yours was really bright yellow. Bright yellow. It could be the same species. We've seen this one have lots of color variety. Well, technically. Oh, yeah, that is the same one. So I guess the bright colors and the length of the petals and the colors they have, you can see it's the same. And this is an arenal volcano, right? Yeah. Was it exposed to light? Yes, it was. OK, makes more sense, too. These I've noticed the more exposed to light, the greener or yellowish the flowers get, and the deeper they are in the forest, the more brown their flowers get. You could even try it with the same plant and you even see a bit of a color change. This is fascinating. So is this one of the Sobralias again? Oh, yeah, exactly. Same species, technically, just a bit of color variety. And another Ploretalis there with the yellow flowers, also endemic, only found in Costa Rica. Again, with the multiple flowers coming out of the leaves. In fact, Ploretalis costarricensis is the name for this one. Costarricensis, so it's like of Costa Rica. Exactly. Yeah. Another Sobralia. Sobralia leucocanta, which I like to call it the black sheep because of the Sobralias, which in general we call the one day orchids. This one lasts about two days. Yeah. So the one that doesn't really last one day in fruit. And yeah, we did mention that common Epidendrum. You can grow so many more on this wall. Yeah, that's actually part of the idea. Yeah. Yeah. And a few ground growing ones, too. Technically, this one is found here a lot and commercialized, but not native. I think it's from Peru, Brazil, more or less, or South America. It's got a funny little, you know, it looks like fibers. Yeah. Fibers top. And yeah, more of the bamboo orchid again. And you can see they do get pollinated here. Yeah, there's the seed pods. Yes. Yeah. It's interesting because when you come here and you have no reference for like, you know, we're from the United States, so I don't have a lot of reference to these plants. And I can't I couldn't be able to tell you if they were native or not. You know, like you said, some of them growing are like as if they're native. I guess the bamboo has escaped into the wild. Exactly. It's not. I guess I also know out of books and study and history, but otherwise it does grow so wild here that it could just look like it's a native. Right. And by the way, the national flower of Costa Rica, that's one of these epiphyte orchids, but the flower could look similar enough. There's actually enough differences if you're really careful with it, but it looks similar enough that people always confuse this one with our national flower. Yeah, because your national flower is a little flouncier. It's a bigger flower. It is. Yeah. I do remember even seeing the web page of one of these newspapers of Costa Rica publishing our national flower, the history. A lot of the history was actually really correct, really accurate and great history, too. But with the picture of the bamboo orchid, that's the part I thought was like, they messed it up with just that one detail. You had one job. And that's I think it's funny, too, because it's a it's a paper. It's a it's a. They should have consulted with somebody. They should. Yeah. Speaking about consultants like more bi-color and the other one is like a little bit more purpley. Yeah. Like same color. Same tone. Yeah. But you have a couple here. Oh, yeah. More of the bamboo bud orchids. We did see those in the greenhouse earlier. And the one on the shoe. Yeah. Oh, it's on the shoe. I did tell my boss it was a missed opportunity. He should have put the lady slipper on the shoe. The lady slipper in the lady slipper. Exactly. Maybe a future destination. Yeah. In my shoes. My shoes are about to deteriorate here. I might actually donate my shoes to you. But I don't think anything else but fungus will want to grow on them. I'd imagine with all this wetness. I mean, we're even here today. We're shooting this in wetness. Porcendi is like soaked. So I always mention all these companies that do like how do you say rain gear, rain gear? Yeah. Basically anything that is supposed to be waterproof. This is where they shoot us. I really argue this is where they should bring everything and test it out. Well, thank you so much. This was a nice little exploration of the gardens. I really appreciate your time. Thank you for agreeing to be on camera. Sure. I appreciate it. This has been phenomenal. And there's so many more that we didn't see here. So depending on the season, you should definitely come because there's always something in bloom here, right? All the time. They take turns. I always mention that. And again, there's different kinds. So when people say it's the best time of year to see orchids, again, maybe it's just a showier ones. Which arguably for me, it's the worst time of year to see orchids because you're seeing the ones that you might have already seen and the ones every everyone has seen. Hear ye, hear ye. So this is the time of year when it's the most hidden ones. Therefore, maybe the ones people have seen the last. So technically the best time of year. Perfect. And that's straight from the horse's mouth there. So thank you so much, Andres. I really appreciate it. Thank you. We are planning on more small group botanical tours to Costa Rica and other countries in the coming year. So if you're keen to join us on a plant filled adventure in real life, be sure to fill out the survey in the video description or in the pinned comment below. We loved our first group tours and hope to see you on one of them in the future. 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