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Eat your vegetables
Super Moderator
Location: Arabidopsis-ville
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Wow, there's a day for women? Not just Mother's Day? This is something I have to remember.
The ghost orchid is spectacular.
Crazy that it lives in florida swamps - seems like one of the most dreary habitat to come across a flower so breath-taking. Makes sense that it's epiphytic and has no leaves - they wouldn't see much light anyway.
For your reference, From the Flora of North America http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.as...n_id=242101563:
Quote:
1. Dendrophylax lindenii (Lindley)
Ghost orchid, frog orchid, palm-polly, Linden’s angurek, white butterfly orchid
Plants appressed to substrate, seemingly leafless. Roots gray-green, fascicled, to 50 cm × 3–5 mm. Stems inconspicuous, obscured by roots. Leaves bractlike, inconspicuous, often absent. Inflorescences: peduncles arcuate-ascending, 6–25 cm; bracts tubular, sheathing, 5–7 mm; racemes 1–10-flowered; floral bracts lanceolate, 4 × 3 mm, scarious. Flowers opening in succession, usually 1–2 at a time, nocturnally fragrant; sepals and petals spreading, white to creamy green or pale yellow-brown; dorsal sepal lanceolate to elliptic-lanceolate, 20–21 × 5–6 mm, apex acute; lateral sepals slightly oblique, lanceolate to narrowly lanceolate, 25–30 × 4–5.5 mm, apex obtuse to acute; petals falcate-recurved, narrowly lanceolate, 22–27 × 4–4.5 mm, apex acute to acuminate; lip white, basally concave, 3-lobed, middle lobe with subquadrangular isthmus, terminating in 2 arching, twisting, caudate lobes 45–70 mm, apiculate, lateral lobes spreading, 18–25 mm wide when spread, apex obtuse to acute; callus with narrow, denticulate keel; spur arcuate, slender, 11–17 cm; column stout, with 2 triangular wings projecting toward lip, 2–3 × 5 mm diam.; pollinia orange; pedicellate ovary slender, 30 × 1.5 mm. Capsules 6–10 × 0.5 cm.
Flowering May--Aug, occasionally as early as Feb. Epiphytic in cypress swamps, wet hammocks; 0--20 m; Fla.; West Indies.
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"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq
"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy
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