Stolen Ghosts

As a graduate student, I had the pleasure of working in orchid rich reserves in South Florida. My lab mates and I would often fill our breaks from research with expeditions to visit locations that we knew held specific orchids. Among the rarest species we looked for were ghost orchids. When we found plants, we would not share there location, but year after year, we would plan research trips that would coincide with ghost orchid blooming season and we would revisit the plants that we found. Except when we couldn't - even though ghost orchids are hard to cultivate, and even as their habitat (cypress swamps with permanent standing water) is drained to make way for development, plants often disappeared. It was heartbreaking to see the tell tale sign of poaching - a freshly cut tree limb - where a ghost once lived.