This Rare, Eerie Orchid is Perfect for Halloween

Ghost orchid (photo credit: NC Orchid via Flickr, CC 2.0)

In her bestselling book The Orchid Thief (the inspiration for the 2002 film Adaptation), Susan Orlean documents her experiences in rare orchid subculture as she accompanies an enterprising horticulturist in a hunt for what’s typically regarded as the rarest (and most expensive) orchid out there: the ghost orchid. 

The plant was first discovered in 1844 in Cuba by Belgian horticulturist Jean Linden, after whom it gets its official name, Dendrophylax lindenii. In 1957, a Florida surgeon saw one on a hike in the Everglades, where it thrives in the swamps and humidity of the region, and he came down with a serious case of “orchidelerium,” or orchid fever (I love that there’s a word for this obsession. I feel so seen!). He gave up his medical practice, began to research orchids, and eventually established the Selby Botanical Gardens. 

The largest known ghost orchid (photo credit: Rudy Wilms via Flickr, CC 2.0)

Ghost orchids got their name because of their all-white flowers, which makes them stand out from the trees they grow on and appear to float in the air. Ghost orchids don’t have any leaves, so their roots do the job of photosynthesis. Scientists have recently learned that ghost orchids, as well as vanilla orchids, rely on a network with fungi to get additional nutrients. Previously, the assumption had been that orchids growing in the soil receive benefits from fungi, but that epiphytic orchids that grow on trees don’t. Botanists are now revisiting that conclusion and conducting more research. 

Ghost orchid (photo credit: Rudy Wilms via Flickr, CC 2.0)

Ghost orchids bloom in the summer and are pollinated at night by sphinx moths, which I just had the wild experience of witnessing for the first time here in Massachusetts. Sphinx moths (there are many different types) look and sound like hummingbirds—the way they hover and move is far more bird-like than insect-like—and they have super long proboscis that can reach inside the flower. 

A rare example of greenhouse-cultivated ghost orchid (photo credit Jeff Hale via Wikimedia)

As with many other highly-desired orchids, over-collecting has caused a decline in the ghost orchid’s numbers. There’s only an estimated 2,000 left in the wild. Climate change and habitat destruction haven’t helped either. South Florida attempts to protect this special, native plant by making it illegal to harvest. Orlean’s memoir chronicles many of these illegal attempts to take ghost orchids from the wild—it’s like poaching, except with orchids instead of elephants or rhinos. It’s exceptionally difficult to keep a ghost orchid alive indoors, and those harvested from the wild typically die rather quickly. 

Some plants aren’t meant to be kept in terrariums and cabinets or to be cultivated by humans. That only makes them even more the strange and beautiful aliens that define their amazingness.