Octopus Orchid And The Orchid House

One of the hidden gems here at Kona Kai is the Orchid House, for which Ronnie (Joe's wife) has been collecting orchids for many years. We currently have about 250 orchids in the house and it's fun to visit because you never know what will be blooming next and there's almost always something new to see from week to week.

Follow the pink brick road (in my best munchkin voice), not to find a wizard...

...but to find Kona Kai's "Emerald City" in the orchid house, the way to which is quite free of flying monkeys and wicked witches, I assure you.

Definitely nothing like Kansas and fortunately the flowers don't make you fall asleep.

This past week, we had a special surprise in the Orchid House with the native octopus orchid (Prosthechea cochleata) coming into bloom. The flower gets its name from its thin tentacle-like petals and its upside-down orientation. Whereas most orchids have their labellum (the highly modified "lip" petal) on the bottom of the flower, the octopus orchid has it on the top and it happens to resemble an octopus head.

Octopus orchid in the Orchid House.

I had never seen anything like it and the resemblance is so striking, I actually thought the plant had bloomed live octopuses until Veronika informed me otherwise.

It's a great specimen in our collection since we are so close to the ocean; if you're lucky you might see both the orchid and the cephalopod equivalent while on a snorkel or dive trip during your stay here!

Mucilage extracted from the pseudobulbs (the enlarged storage sections of the stems) of this orchid have been used as a natural adhesive, so if you're prone to breaking things, you might consider keeping a few of these around. The people of Belize must really enjoy this bloom because the octopus orchid is their national flower...either that or they break lots of things.

The octopus orchid is only one of many beautiful blooms to see in the orchid house, so be sure to check it out during your next stay either on your own or on a tour with me! Here are a few other orchids I found in bloom today for you to enjoy:

Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

The Everglades and Marie Selby Botanical Gardens

Ok, so more catching-up to do.  Early this past week I drove up to Sarasota with Ethan to visit the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, which specializes in epiphytes, such as orchids, bromeliads, and air plants (tillandsias).  Driving through the Everglades and Big Cypress National Preserve on the way there was certainly a neat experience.  The land is very flat but there is so much life and beauty in the landscape if one takes the time to look (often from a new perspective); unfortunately, much of this goes unseen to cars speeding by.  Upon arrival at Selby, Tom Buchter, who worked for six years as the Director of Horticulture at the Holden Arboretum and is currently the CEO of Selby Gardens, greeted us.  He gave us a great introduction to the Gardens and saw that we were well taken care of during our stay by arranging time for us with a number of different staff.  We learned all about orchids from Angel Lara, the greenhouse manager; Laurie Birch showed us how plant records are kept and how plants are inventoried; and Bruce Holst, the Director of Research and Collections, gave us a tour of the herbarium (a collection of pressed identified plants) and spirit collection.  The spirit collection is quite interesting because it consists of hundreds of glass bottles containing mostly orchid flowers that are preserved in a mix of alcohol, water, and glycerin.  This is useful because making classic pressed herbarium specimens squashes all parts of a specimen from 3D to 2D.  The staff were all extremely knowledgeable and kind; they have a beautiful place in Selby Gardens, and if you are in the area and have some time, I would highly recommend stopping by.  The trip provided me with a lot of ideas for the Gardens here at Kona Kai, including the development of labels and signs for our collections, care for our orchids, resources for plant information, and the possibility of developing a small herbarium.

Rick Hederstrom

Associate Director