28.01.25 Costa Rica Orchids

We have just returned from a family holiday to Costa Rica having seen lots of amazing wildlife. I am writing about "tropical" orchids this time, instead of the usual British terrestrial kind. After all, there is not much happening on the latter front in January.

There are reported to be 1400 different orchid species in Costa Rica but I didn't see many, at least not in the wild! Travelling around, one saw a few large terrestrial orchids planted for garden landscaping: the Bamboo orchid is one of these. It has long straight stems like bamboo shoots with a small number of flowers, but they are a very striking two-tone pink and purple. It is an Asiatic introduction. Also there were frequent Vanilla plants, one of the largest of all orchids.

In the Monteverde cloud forest trails I saw four different epiphytic species on tree branches, but they were mostly too far away to identify or even see very well with binoculars. However, there were two plants of a lovely little yellow Oncidium species. They were at eye level on fallen tree trunks. I am not sure of the species identification; possibly obryzatoides.

There are at least 500 species in the Monteverde area alone, but they were not apparent. It was a little early in the year and they flower more in February to April after the rains have subsided, high up in the trees. Even a walk round the orchid greenhouse in the La Selva Biological Reserve yielded many pots of greenery but only three actually in flower, and two of these were the same species!

A great place to visit, though, is the Orchid Garden in Santa Elena, close to Monteverde, where there are always plenty flowering (monteverdeorchidgarden.com). This is an outdoor botanical garden for tropical orchids. I got a great one-to-one guided tour by Jose, packed with information which I have now mostly forgotten. Almost all are true species and not commercial hybrids; much more interesting (and beautiful) for that I think. He said many of their orchids are actually really tiny and pointed out one with flowers only a couple of millimetres long that I had thought was not in flower.

There are plenty of showy ones too, like the Trichopilia suavis. Not all their orchids are epiphytic, with about 15% being terrestrial. Also we saw a bright green Euglossa bee on a flower as we were going round.

So I didn’t see many orchids truly in the wild, but I’m not at all disappointed with what I did see.

Photos: 1. Bamboo orchid (Arundina graminifolia), 2. Trigonidium seemannii, 3. Oncidium species (obryzatoides?), 4. Trichopilia suavis, 5. Coelogyne nitida, 6. A Spider orchid (Brassia species?)

Anthony.heys@sky.com