I love epiphytes. Bromeliads and Orchids, especially.
I know in the wild they grow up in the rainforest canopy in trees. But how do they get up there in the first place?

For starters, you could browse this website
http://www.orchidspecies.com/
It is an encyclopedia of species orchids & probably the oldest on the net.

I see you are in England so you could also check the RHS
http://www.rhs.org.uk/Plants
Cheers Wendy

"mycoolgirl" wrote in message
...

I read an article in a very old National geographic magazine long ago
about orchids and I was amazed about how many there were with new
variety's being discovered every year. This makes curious about how many
are catalogued now. Any help available would be appreciated.




--
mycoolgirl

In general they get there by having a seed dispersal strategy that gets a proportion of the seeds into the right location where they will grow. Orchids, for example, often have extremely numerous fine dustlike seeds, and release them into the wind so that some proportion of them are likely to blow into suitable locations. This is the same technique many fungus and ferns use with their very fine dust-like spores. There are other strategies that ephiphytes might have. For example the common mistletoe found in Europe is one of those plants that relies upon having the fruit eaten by a bird (or other animal) for dispersal. The animal then excretes the seeds out the other end, a proportion arriving in suitable locations. In the case of the epiphytic mistletoe. the bird (often a mistlethrush) excretes while sitting on a tree perch, and some will fall onto a tree branch rather than onto the ground, and even after passing through the gut of a bird the mistletoe seed retains a rather sticky covering so it can stay there. I think strangler figs use a similar technique, though in their case they rely upon the seed falling into a place on a tree that has collected some organic matter it can grow in, eg, at the upward facing fork of a branch - figs have very numerous seeds so only a tiny proportion need to arrive in good locations.

There are 2 kinds. Those I do not have and those I am going to get someday.

Vito


"mycoolgirl" wrote in message
...

I read an article in a very old National geographic magazine long ago
about orchids and I was amazed about how many there were with new
variety's being discovered every year. This makes curious about how many
are catalogued now. Any help available would be appreciated.




--
mycoolgirl

On Sep 12, 1:43*pm, "uncle_vito" wrote:
There are 2 kinds. *Those I do not have and those I am going to get someday.

Vito


Very nice!
=)

THE best reply...

now, there are many many cataloged, and as a rule of thumb, many
botanist will admit that for every 5 names published, only one is of a
valid species.

Orchids seem to have 20.000 species appr. coming second after the
Asteraceae (the daisy family).
However, published names are by far too many.

For example, the genus Ophrys, on which I can comment, has 1.700
published names, and most botanists will agree that there are only
19~30 species at the most

That's a very good question. Have you ever seen orchid seeds; they are very small, almost dust-like. The wind carries them everywhere, including up to the tree tops. They are also carried by insects and birds.

As far as Orchids are concern their seeds are very small and easily blown by wind. Bromeliads have fruits that are eaten by birds and then the seeds are passed out. Lianas usually grow on the ground and then climb the trees. Very interesting is it?