fuck records, i'm digging for orchids

Frank

Getting my hands dirty in the cloud forests of Costa Rica. Over 1.400 native species of orchids and the largest bio-diversity on the planet. Each tree is its own micro-cosmos:







Some of the exploits so far, the first buds are showing and I'm looking forward to blooming season from March to May:










The air is so much better than where I've been digging for records and it's also much better exercise...

No worries, I also just bought plane tickets to Ghana & Nigeria so I'll hopefully also get to post some record finds later this year...

HarveyCanal

Can't just leave things be in the field, ha? Gotta go fuck with it so it ends up on your wall like you created it. I see ya, grand wizard imperialist you.

;)

ppadilha

record piracy = FUCKING ASSHOLES

biopiracy = CHECK OUT MY COOL HOBBY

just keep your euroman hands off the superfruits and poisonous tree frogs...

Frank

Haha! I knew this was coming but I'm still surprised at the swiftness!
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Rockadelic

My new favorite TV Show is Wicked Tuna.....these dudes go out into the ocean and pluck one of natures beautiful creatures out of the sea via rod and reel.....usually takes a few hours of ridiculously hard work....and then they go and sell them .....first episode I watched they sold one tuna for $8,800.....fuck records!

cookbook

so rad Frank. keep us posted around March when the blooms start!

ppadilha

that's actually the kind of hobby I wish I was capable of having. I've looked into tropical bonsais since I moved back to Brazil but, if my success with fish when I was kid is any indication, my plants would probably burst into flames after about a month. I hear orchids take some work too.

if you have ample garden space I would consider planting some native fruits, there's probably some good ones over there.

Frank

Fruit trees take too much time since we're only going to be here for 3-4 years but I'm growing several breeds of chilies, herbs, peppers and some weird thing that looks like peppers but isn't...

I'm not collecting any plants in protected habitats or primary forests. These are all trees next to paths that connect coffee plantations in the mountains about a 5 minute drive and a short hike away from our home. On the actual trees I only collect offshoots and don't tear off entire plants. The larger specimen I have found after storms when I know I will find entire trees, branches or large chunks of moss often carrying a whole variety of epiphytes on the ground. Once the epiphytes have lost the protection of the tree and its foliage, they will die off before the next dry season is over. The one orchid with the large number of buds for example I took off a dead tree in front of our bedroom window just before the gardener chopped the whole thing into pieces of fire wood... I'm also not crazy enough to climb up any trees in the actual jungle if only for the shit ton of poisonous snakes, spiders, centipedes etc.

Reading your 2nd post I realized that you meant the biopiracy bit as a joke but but you do have a point there. There are several orchid species which have become critically close to extinction due to people collecting them for their gardens. Or at least that's what some of the media is saying and this also only applies to what is obvious right next to the paths and trails. If you look at a map of the country there are large mountain areas that are covered with forests and in-penetrable undergrowth. Nobody knows what's growing on those trees and that's probably a very good thing.

Costa Rica not only has the highest bio-diversity on earth but also the highest consumption of pesticides. This and deforestation most probably accounts for considerable loss of plant life especially such plants as fragile as orchids...

Frank

ppadilha said:

I hear orchids take some work too..

Epiphytic orchids are extremely easy to cultivate. Especially when you keep them in their native climate. Only thing you have to do is put them on a piece of wood, use some moss to protect the aerial roots and to absorb and conserve moisture, locate them at a relatively bright spot but where they don't get much if any direct sunlight (consider where you found them and set them up like that) and leave them be. During dry season I spray them with a bit of water early in the morning or before I go to bed and I can tell they're happy. I won't take them with me when we leave but will set them free in the trees that line the creek bordering our garden and ask our landlord for photographic updates once a year.

LoopDreams

When does the Raer Orchid seller list get issued? I'm in.

The_Non

Read about the kidnapping of orchid hunters Tom Hart Dyke and Paul Winder. It's an interesting parable of when raer hunting goes wrong. Fascinatingly, they eventually got released because it seems the kidnappers found them too annoying to deal with, a secuestradores first!

Frank

Did you read their book?
I'm usually not at all into autobiographic books by non-writers but of course I'm intrigued...

The_Non

Their story is very interesting, but they themselves seem like buttholes. I've read excerpts from the book, but I am more interested in my own research about the kidnappers vs them. I'd say give it a whirl, it's an interesting story.

ppadilha

yeah, I was joking about the bio-piracy. I don't think collecting orchids is fucking anything up, unless you're really wandering into the jungle and fucking some other shit up in the process. The shitty thing is pharmaceuticals that steal plants and animals (like those poisonous frogs) for medical research and then patent those substances in their countries, thus locking the native population out of a potential source of income. Plus the whole "save this cute animal/plant" line of environmentalism is just some stupid bullshit created by people who have probably never set foot inside a tropical rainforest. National Geographic will even write articles criticizing indigenous people for using a bird or two for their feathers, claiming they're contributing to the extinction of a species, while that bird's entire habitat is being cut down by farmers and loggers. But I digress.

the point about the fruit trees was more to do with the whole deforestation thing. I assume Costa Rica is full of huge monocultures of things like coffee and bananas, so it's nice to contribute to the biodiversity by planting some native species. Brazil has some amazing fruits, 90% of which you will never find in a supermarket. I'm sure Costa Rica is the same way. There's probably some hippie with a seed bank near you, and you can find some plants that grow in smaller bushes and will probably start to bear fruit in a year or two. Plus they would require even less maintenance than the orchids.

LaserWolf

Propagating plants ensures their continued bio success.

Nothing wrong with cultivating, dividing and selling those orchids. Assuming laws allow and there is a market.

It could be that some plants thrive in those buffered pathways between coffee plantations where you are orchid digging.
You may be finding orchids that don't do well in dense old rainforests, but thrive in more open disturbed areas.

Grope

I'm a botanist. At least my diploma thesis was about endemic Asteraceae from Malta. I found an orchid on my second trip to Malta that my prof really wanted to show in his book (field guide) about the wild plants of Malta. The orchid is extremely rare and he has never seen it in 8 years of visiting Malta.

Orchids are under wildlife protection. The whole family of Orchids. Be careful. Don't try to take any on the plane or so.

Did you watch Adaption with Nicolas Cage? I liked the movie. You should watch it. It's funny.

LaserWolf

Adaptation was a fictionalization of a non-fiction writers research into Florida orchid poacher.
Good movie.
I still want to read the non-fiction book that inspired the movie.

Otis_Funkmeyer

The shelves in my house are filled with records and orchids. I've accepted that you beat me at my game but now you're going after my wife's. Not cool.

Frank

ppadilha said:

yeah, I was joking about the bio-piracy. I don't think collecting orchids is fucking anything up, unless you're really wandering into the jungle and fucking some other shit up in the process. The shitty thing is pharmaceuticals that steal plants and animals (like those poisonous frogs) for medical research and then patent those substances in their countries, thus locking the native population out of a potential source of income. Plus the whole "save this cute animal/plant" line of environmentalism is just some stupid bullshit created by people who have probably never set foot inside a tropical rainforest. National Geographic will even write articles criticizing indigenous people for using a bird or two for their feathers, claiming they're contributing to the extinction of a species, while that bird's entire habitat is being cut down by farmers and loggers. But I digress.

the point about the fruit trees was more to do with the whole deforestation thing. I assume Costa Rica is full of huge monocultures of things like coffee and bananas, so it's nice to contribute to the biodiversity by planting some native species. Brazil has some amazing fruits, 90% of which you will never find in a supermarket. I'm sure Costa Rica is the same way. There's probably some hippie with a seed bank near you, and you can find some plants that grow in smaller bushes and will probably start to bear fruit in a year or two. Plus they would require even less maintenance than the orchids.

We have some small wild guavas in our garden which are super sweet and make great rum cocktails. Whenever I gsee something obscure looking on the market I buy it but many times stuff didn't taste too great like those weird pejibaye fruits... got some great stuff though as well and collected the the seeds... so far we have planted these weird pepper looking veggies that taste like zucchini but are crisp like chile poblanos, stuff grows like a pest and a rare, plum shaped, blood red Peruvian chilli that has pitch black seeds... only seen those on the market once and they are amazing.

Frank

LaserWolf said:

Propagating plants ensures their continued bio success.

Nothing wrong with cultivating, dividing and selling those orchids. Assuming laws allow and there is a market.

It could be that some plants thrive in those buffered pathways between coffee plantations where you are orchid digging.
You may be finding orchids that don't do well in dense old rainforests, but thrive in more open disturbed areas.

That could very well be the case. I've been hiking though several jungles and the vegetation is always so thick that you just can't tell what grows on top of the trees but it's definitely a whole different set of plant life than what you see on those more solitary trees that have some direct sun but then also the intense mist when the mountains get stuck in the clouds.

Frank

Grope said:

I'm a botanist. At least my diploma thesis was about endemic Asteraceae from Malta. I found an orchid on my second trip to Malta that my prof really wanted to show in his book (field guide) about the wild plants of Malta. The orchid is extremely rare and he has never seen it in 8 years of visiting Malta.

Orchids are under wildlife protection. The whole family of Orchids. Be careful. Don't try to take any on the plane or so.

Did you watch Adaption with Nicolas Cage? I liked the movie. You should watch it. It's funny.

Got a picture of that orchid?

Def. won't take any of those orchids on a plane. I'm well aware that you can't legally take them out of the country and rightfully so. I wouldn't want to take them to an environment where they won't feel at home. We might eventually move back to Europe in 3-4 years and I wouldn't even want to imagine them withering away inside some apartment during a grey Berlin winter...

I'll look out for Adaption, might be too old for our small local dvd store to have it though.

ppadilha

Frank said:

We have some small wild guavas in our garden which are super sweet and make great rum cocktails. Whenever I gsee something obscure looking on the market I buy it but many times stuff didn't taste too great like those weird pejibaye fruits... got some great stuff though as well and collected the the seeds... so far we have planted these weird pepper looking veggies that taste like zucchini but are crisp like chile poblanos, stuff grows like a pest and a rare, plum shaped, blood red Peruvian chilli that has pitch black seeds... only seen those on the market once and they are amazing.

the peppers sound awesome. I'm always looking for new ones in the markets here, although where I am people have a pretty weak pepper game. Too much german and italian influence in the south of Brazil.

looked up that pejibaye - here it's called pupunha, apparently people cook the fruit before eating it. I've only had the heart of the tree, it's similar to the regular heart of palm, but it's a little richer tasting and it's great grilled fresh with a little olive oil.

there's a lot of stuff that isn't sold in markets for whatever reason, sometimes it doesn't travel well, or is hard to harvest, or people just don't think to sell it. But you'll find people keep those plants in their backyards or farms and eat them on a regular basis.

examples from down here:


cupua??u - related to cacao. the juice is delicious


jabuticaba - maybe more subtropical than tropical, but it's awesome


pitanga - tart little berries


tapereb?? - they look kinda like kumquats on the outside, great for making drinks


caj??-manga - taste close to mango. Might be known as juplon in Costa Rica.

Da Vinylmentalist

This is all great Frank, but did you go looking for any records in Costa Rica as well? Are there any good funk records to begin with?

Grope

Frank said:

Got a picture of that orchid?

It was a subtype of this:



and it looked very similar. more yellowish. i'll try to find some pictures on my old hard drive. none of the malta orchids are epiphytic though.

the university of marburg/germany has a huge orchid collection. as a student i was allowed to go inside their green houses. crazy!!!! the orchids were never included in the showcases of the botanical garden because thieves would have been tempted. the uni has really super rare ones, because they started the collection before the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna came into effect.
the uni is now allowed to keep the plants. and the gardeners know how to take care of them. praying the roots with plain water is cool. one tip is to dunk the aerial roots into buckets with rainwater every week and let them soak for an hour or two. the water needs to be warm. fertilizing the rain water every two to three months helps to quicken the bloom. i think it depends on the species though...
the green house gardeners trimmed orchids because they were outgrowing the green house. sprouts or buds all over the floor and on the compost pile. i took some orchids home. only three survived. i have no clue what they exactly are.

BeatChemist

Soulstrut. Come for the rekkids. Stay for the international orchid smuggling thraeds.

Thanks for sharing this Frank! I don't know shit about orchids but this got me googling a bit and it's super interesting!

herbacios tweed

botany?

STAY IN YOUR LANE