TROPICAL MONTANE ORCHID Tour — Ep. 322

while at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens we had an opportunity to tour the high elevation Orchid House with botanist Becky Brinkman ABG has one of the best collections of montane orchids in the country and the curation and lushness of the conservatory was on full display when we were there I'm Becky Brinkman I'm a Hugo Orchid Center manager when you came through those doors over there you entered the Fuqua Orchid Center which is a 16 000 square foot glass house that supports our Orchid collection and it consists of a seasonal display area which we're standing in right now a tropical high elevation house the Orca display house a microp lab and an orchid reference library and a classroom and so the tropical or the Alpine exhibit is where we're going to go now right that's where we're going to go now is this your favorite part of this section this is a super special part of the garden okay yeah yeah and you'll see my favorites okay [Music] thank you [Music] this episode is brought to you by my new podcast Bad Seeds the phrase Black Market evokes Sinister images stacks of AK-47s crates of cocaine but potted succulents on a windowsill no one is calling Crime Stoppers for that but maybe you should because the biggest black market you've never heard of might be blooming right under your nose this plant could sell for between ten and fifteen thousand dollars on the open market and where there's big money there are bigger risks we were just tied up with what looked like Garden string behind our backs these big M16 stuck to our heads I'm Summer Rain Oaks I'm a plant expert and author on the Bad Seeds podcast we plunge straight into the underworld of plant crime from Mexican drug cartels to corrupt elected officials we explore how the black market for plants has repercussions for you me and the fate of the planet listen to Bad Seeds on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts you're quite a job curating in here huh yeah this is a wonderful place this is the tropical high elevation houses lots of gardens haven't an Alpine house yeah but this is a little different this is for plants from 6 000 feet and higher in the tropics my pain region Alpine feels like it's like more it's mountainous but it's sparser in a way you know when I've gone to Alpine houses this is Lush yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] good [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] house for a couple of reasons why is the diversity there's probably more diversity per square foot in this greenhouse than anywhere else in the garden also uh the cooling system is super special in here in order to keep the conditions cool and moist we don't use a conventional air conditioning system we use what's called an air washer which is a system that's used in the textile industry during the manufacture of textiles in order to cool and humidify and keep static electricity down so how does it work we got in touch with the people in a textile Factory not too far from here and asked them if they would custom build one for our greenhouse and so uh the way it works is down below us in the basement is the equipment right it starts out with a chiller that pre-cools the water to 42 degrees and then the water enters What's called the rain chamber which is has a wall with a grid of spray bars and puzzles and that 42 degree of water then becomes like a fine Mist right a wall of fine mist is it kind of similar to what they have in the greenhouses like in the back of the wall they have the cooling wall or is it is it dissimilar to this it's kind of the same concept okay yeah but the the water that flows through the system is much cooler of 42 degrees yeah and so on the other side of the uh the rain chamber is a very large fan 15 by 15 that draws air through that that water wall that chilly water wall then the air comes up here it has forced up here and it creates a wonderful buoyant cool humid Misty environment that you wouldn't get with conventional air conditioning how did you even like come upon a system like that trying to recreate like an outdoor system I just can't even bath them yeah it was just a stroke of Genius part of the guy who built this place well that is the first time that I've heard that well why don't you take us through some of the amazing species that you have here I mean if you have your most diversity packed in I guess we don't even have to walk that far in order to be able to hit a lot of plants right right well uh there are three different geographical regions represented here right now we're standing in uh among the Flora of the Andean tropics and these of South America all these plants around the waterfall and on the other side of the pathway or the things that you would see if you were traveling through the mountains in Peru and Ecuador and Colombia well I'm not an orchid connoisseur so you're going to have to take me through some of the species that we're seeing here and any kind of Natural History or personal stories that you might have with them well what's really hot in here right now are the maxillarias uh there's this wonderful maxillary fletcheriana that's flowering here it's robust yes yeah it's a big Hefty thing maxillary splendon chili Rihanna and then there are more more very wonderful species in the back of the greenhouse you tried to put some of the Genera together they were mounted onto this tree branch we want to have like a little maxillary display you know in the tropics there would actually be a little more few other things mixed in with them now do you find with like the the orchids like the the maxillary they're obviously in the same they obviously are in the same genus they're in the same type of habitat do you find this genus to be across a range of habitats or is it one of those ones that kind of uh are conglomerate within this type of ecoregion they're a little bit widespread there are some that occur in more exposed areas and some in more humid areas yeah there are other things besides Orchid here if you're into and thorough the anthurian that is a dark space right there isn't that amazing yeah is that a cultivar or is that no that's a species yeah what species is that camera rensing cabaretsi yeah big heart-shaped leaves but yeah that is pretty cool and behind it is probably the largest anthurium in here do you see that anthurium gigantium up on top of the waterfall with the immense leaves this one it looks almost like a ginormous cabbage leaf we actually had to lash it to the side of the building because we were afraid it was going to topple over one day there's a really cool one over here ovadafolium and Theorem of betafolium you can see it's actually in Fruit right now with the big red fruit the spatix is loaded with bright red fruits and as you look around you'll notice lots of little orchids in the trees what do you do to affix them is it just fishing line or how do you we use fishing lines okay some of my colleagues swear by pantyhose I know I see I see a lot of pantyhose pantyhose but I'm not in the pantyhose school so um we use monofilament here but notice how small most of the orchids are these are all orcas growing in the trees here look at the tiny little this is uh what you'd find at high elevations in the tropics miniature orchids yeah yeah the energetic cost of producing a large Plant body at high elevations what's really cool is just it's cost prohibitive so most of the orchids that you see at high elevations are teen seawencies I mean this is why you could boast the amount of diversity because you could fit all like a dozen on one little Branch yeah there are some super special yep there it is a little tiny little the panties in full bloom and then what is this like little purple thing in the back that doesn't it doesn't look like an orchid to me it is devalia and there's one of my faves right here they look like green beans don't they if you touch that leaf it's got a coarse texture to it oh yeah that terrific plant that's a fluorothalis chlorothalis dilemma why do they call it dilemma just because that's a great question maybe it's a dilemma yeah and then how about this that's a little stellus this kind of reminds me a little bit of the one that I recently had picked up that they called it the oh see I'm not good at orchids they called it like red wheat I don't know the red wheat they have do you know what I'm doing that's what it looks like but this one's kind of cool too because it has the under the underbelly of the uh Leaf surface to purple which I know a lot of people kind of enjoy that color it is and uh yeah that's one that actually can grow it brighter light and brighter light conditions and these will turn bright red see that's kind of unusual because a lot of those um understory plants typically have that are uh used to growing in not so bright light have that purple underbelly you know what I mean so it's fascinating that it could take some highlight too if you look up you'll see some of the Dracula orchids this guy right here oh wow a little Chester Tony eye the lip of that Dracula Orchid is a fungus mimic it's uh trying to attract fungus gnats yeah it's the pollinator and there's something another one behind you look at this guy he's kind of on his way out it looks like it reminds me a bit more of the coloration of like an aristolopia flower exactly yeah yeah yeah and what about this guy right here it probably has this yeah some of these produce fragrances that are carry-on-like to attract and it looks like a little like red meat yeah that one I think in particular can smell kind of foul on some days well I don't need to go to the spa today [Music] this I just saw some of these plants it's an ericaceous type plant right it is have you ever tasted it um they do produce fruits yeah these are some of the neo-tropical blueberries berries yeah yeah yeah and we'll see more of those up on the waterfalls that with actual fruits do you know what species this is that's a mcleania I think it's pentapuron okay I saw them first at the Chad Husby at Fairchild tropical gardens and I was like that's a beautiful little plant yes neotropical blueberries are one of our specialties the area that we've entered right now we've now come over into the floor of the tabletop mountains of Venezuela and the Guyana Highlands and so uh one of my favorite groups of plants here are heliantras which are carnivorous plants they're actually related to the saracenas that you saw this morning yeah same family only these guys grow on the tops of the table top mountains right where they've um sort of uh evolved in isolation from the floor that grows on the Savannah below so did you think these like kind of like had some kind of co-evolution kind of uh with the saracenius sure sure that trap is um just a modified Leaf yeah that's uh fused into a tubular form the trapping principle is sort of the same as a passive trap got downward pointing hairs and a slippery interior surface and so um the insect goes in and can't come out and is digested in the liquid below do you know what is the digestive fluid but then there is it a typo hydrochloric acid or now this is one I believe that does not have enzymes congestive enzymes okay they just it just dissolves inside but you see the lure at the top of the pitcher do you see the inverted spoon the little red top produces a sticky sweet fluid to attract its prey this is is this cold damage or is this like reddening from the Sun yeah running from the Sun I like heavy of it as a ball or like a little bullet it's turned into a giant cabbage-like specimen that's a scaffa sepulum escapacephalum look at that tiny guy and how long do these like typically Bloom for I mean everything I'm sure is different but are they like consecutive blooms do they bloom over the course of like a year this one has been in flower continuously uh for years you can see all the old inflorescences yeah down here yeah serious keeps going you're probably just getting the just right yeah it's in its sweet spot here [Music] oh yeah [Music] I have to show you one of my favorite maxillarias back here this is maxillary fractiflexa whoa and I saw this for the first time actually in California years before we built the tropical high elevation house and thought that's one we need to have it's like a sea creature and there's a wonderful talanzia do you see the orange talanzia and flower above it yeah with a crinkly yeah this is very I mean it almost looks like it's dying yeah in a sort of kind of weird way it looks fake it looks like plasticky you know what I mean yeah and there's another species up there right yeah and those are also you would find those in like the tabletop mountains is that still where we are uh uh South America in general okay I actually love these are type of fern right it is yeah is this in a laugh of Gotham so now we're headed over into into Asia okay and you can see some of our Asiatic Orchid Flora this is really wonderful silogeny I mean this looks like a an egg like a sunny side up egg the colors this is another one that flowers almost continuously for us in this really nice cool environment this is a cold brockhurst now do you kind of stick to more species or are you also not you know you could you also take a number of cultivars as well that's one of the things that makes our Orca collection distinctive you know a lot of places have um collections that include lots of hybrids our permanent collection consists of just species orcas because we want to show people what exists in nature and why it's wonderful and worth conserving so that's our Lane right so a lot of people will have like Orchid shows like at their Botanic Gardens a lot of other Botanic Gardens will have Orchid shows a lot of those are hybrids but is this like this is really part of your permanent collection then yes we have hybrids in our Orchid days our spring 10-week Orchid show and we use hybrids and that but those never enter our permanent collection and is that something that you're known for here yeah okay so your your permanent collection of your orchids in particular like your Alpine varieties is that something that is pretty distinctive here it is it's one of the things yeah that makes our that makes our collection unique we have one of the largest species collections in North America above us you can see some Highland the penpes if you're familiar with Independence you know there are a lot of them that are at low elevations yeah but these are the ones that grow a six thousand feet and higher in the traffic are you caring for these very similarly to how you would care for this house in general um like all the penthes they want a ton of water yeah yeah so is that enough with the Mist system or do you have to like go up there and like hand water them oh we water we actually water every day you do you water every day every day even with the Miss system yeah yeah wow yeah it doesn't mean we water every plant every day but we're in here with hoses um hand watering every day there's no Automatic Irrigation um everything gets what it wants when it wants yeah we're on their schedule they're not on our schedule oh and here's one of my favorites um most people know this is sort of hilum it's been there's a lot of flux going on now in Orchid taxonomy and so this one's been shifted around yeah I've read a lot of like lumping all together and people went crazy because then all the species were lumped in one category and this one you know so are you a lumper or a splitter oh you know I'm in the middle but what's really cool about this in case you're wondering where the actual plant is um they're growing on this uh tree fern trunk right there with the strapless leaves and it produces this enormously long inflorescence you can see it's scrambling yeah that's our cooling system coming on oh I see oh that's interesting yeah so this is the the cold air being pumped up from the rain Chambers down that water is pre-chilled to 42 degrees Yeah Yeah and then it goes through the spray wall yeah is that where you store your beers down there too it's like a wine cooler it's basically like a refrigerator [Music] amazing and I I could feel like the cool air coming through yeah so is this this is different from like the Dancy dancing ladies right it's a relative yeah because it reminds me of that they're just a little frillier it looks like that's right and uh it has actually been shifted to the genus on the studio on video yeah oh so it's in this area and then more maxillaries down below this is Max hilarious sandriana the blood red Center okay so now we've come over to uh the Flora of Mount Kinabalu on the island of Borneo yeah another area was very high endemism yeah yeah and so here you can see um town of pentees would grow in nature they start out as a rosette down on the ground and then they scramble up into the shrub layer this is like a metanilla over here that had flowers it is a melosome yeah those are the fruits so here's another one of our neotropical blueberries yeah this new uh Kevin duchia mikaansis and uh you'll notice the tubular flowers They're hummingbirds pollinated and it is right above another species [Music] Coco laboieties which actually has some fruits on it oh yeah which you're welcome to try yes like this one yeah is this a fruit yeah oh my goodness I couldn't catch anything or a South African exhibit are these like all little um sugar crystals on top yeah even if they were I would still eat it oh what do you think all right so it's not like a blueberry in the sense that it's much more watery but but gelatinous with the faint tint of like a very faint tint of like a left like a floral lavender taste in my opinion you want to give it a shot try half of it would you put that on your cereal I wouldn't even waste it on my cereal I'd eat it I need it I need it fresh and raw yeah it's like labs are great yeah isn't it it's it's just it's gelatinous like a grape but grapes are even firmer I feel yeah it's not as firm is it great yes yes exactly yeah texture is a big part of it but these are actually more nutritious than the cultivated blueberries that we can oh I'm sure we've bastardized our fruits like so poorly badly very high in antioxidants are the flowers edible [Music] remember but I could have swore it getting an edible Vibe I could have swore I like ate a flower and yes I did eat the flour these taste like rhubarb [Music] yeah it tastes just like it okay yeah a pie yeah what's this guy right here oh that's an epidandrum is that a crazy color yeah that's bizarre I love that yeah again the really brightly colored leaves what do you think pollinates this butterflies could be and what are these cute little guys over here with these like Cherry cheery faces those little little lady slipper kind of thingies that's right yeah that's fragmented and Andean slipper orchid oh is that a like a messy eye up there exactly a little orange one yeah yeah that one's famous for having been discovered and then lost it's thought to have been extinct in the wild and only existed in cultivation uh thanks to the micro prop Lab at Marie Selby Botanical Garden ah subsequently it was rediscovered in the wild in a distant population um but yeah so just indicative how important uh artificial propagation is to um saving threatened species when you're doing artificial propagation though are you preserving kind of the diversity of the jeans or are you kind of micro profiting like one specific species over and over and over again or one expression one cell line I guess okay so I'm not an expert on this topic yeah um but there are different types of micro propagation there's seed propagation and then there's cloning tissue culture um the goal with uh having a conservation collection is to preserve as much genetic diversity as possible within a population and so you want to have um as much of that as possible so you wouldn't want to clone them yeah in the lab unless you had an exceptional individual I guess it really depends on your end goal and if you're a conservation lab you're going to want to focus on genetic diversity and maybe the seed micro population you know okay since you're into a laugh or glasses um we have a couple of really cool species here that has the amazing sort of scurvy perennials yeah that's crazy and look at how they that one is emerging and it kind of looks like it has like corn flakes on it or something you know and this is like burned the cornflakes very meaty leaf and then there's another one over in the corner with black hairs wow and there's a fertile frond look at that oh it's creepy it's like um the legs of a an arachnid you know they need a super humid environment yeah yeah not a house plant we'll continue our tour through the Orchid exhibit in the next episode in the meantime We Trust you're enjoying these tours tips and more on the channel and ask that you consider liking 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Channel: Summer Rayne Oakes

Views: 33,429

Keywords: Summer Rayne Oakes, Homestead Brooklyn, Plant One On Me, plants, houseplants, indoor plants, garden, gardening, house plants, houseplant care, tropical montane orchid tour, alpine orchids, montane orchids, tropical orchids, orchid, orchid conservatory, best botanical garden, Orchid tour, Atlanta Botanical Garden, Atlanta Botanical Garden orchids, Atlanta Botanical Garden orchid tour, tropical montane orchid, Tropical alpine orchid, orchid greenhouse, orchids, best orchids

Id: 5KqTn4zJVIQ

Length: 26min 21sec (1581 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2023