Plant experts hope to learn more about the state’s rare orchids. First, they have to find them.
The boardwalk through Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary attracts more than 100,000 guests a year, but the backcountry portions of the 13,000-acre property, accessible only to staff and visiting researchers, is rarely traversed and maintains the same mystique that the explorers of yesteryear must have encountered.
On a mild April morning, a dozen hikers set out to investigate one enigma of these woods—the presence of rare orchids and other epiphytes. South Florida’s wildlands harbor some of the state’s most charismatic and imperiled species, including the ghost orchid (Dendrophylax lindenii) and the cigar orchid (Cyrtopodium punctatum). With just over 100 native species, Florida has the richest diversity of native orchids in North America. But much remains unknown about the size, range, and health of their populations. To find these plants, you must comb places like cypress swamps and hardwood hammocks, guided by GPS and a sense of adventure.
This survey’s participants represent three organizations—the Sanctuary, Naples Botanical Garden, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission—along with independent experts who’ve joined the excursion out of a love for these plants and desire to protect them. Over the next few hours, they will survey the perimeter of a wetland, tallying every state-listed endangered, threatened, and commercially exploited orchid and epiphyte they see. They’ll also note other relevant finds, such as the presence of wildlife—a sign of ecosystem health—and that of invasive plants, an ever-looming threat.
The group steps into the forest’s dappled sunlight, boots squishing in mud. The understory is sparse, allowing them to pick their way through the cypress relatively unencumbered. The unofficial ringleader is Mike Owen, a biologist who recently retired from Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park, where he spent 30 years conducting such surveys in the 85,000-acre forest. In late 2023, he began examining some of South Florida’s other vast conservation lands—Big Cypress National Preserve, Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, and the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge—together with land managers and plant experts such as the ones assembled today…