Familiar mountain areas with fresh air and forest roads which I have traveled numerous times are my favorite places for the exploration of insects. Today I visited here again not for insects but for orchids which have little relation to insects. I did not know when it started like a seed planted with preference for a specific plant the interest began to grow rapidly in my mind from 2008. Thus I started a journey of exploration for a specific plant and later I just found that the journey was the same as the search for finding insects! At first I bought all kinds of books introducing orchids from bookstores to accumulate knowledge in the hope of helping me understand Orchidaceae. Afterwards I searched for information online and grasped basic understanding of “what is an orchid”. Basically I divided orchids into three categories when I conducted my field observations. The first and my favorite one was epiphytic orchid; many people often mistake the literal meaning of “adnascent and epiphytic.”The second was terrestrial orchids namely orchids growing on the ground. Although many kinds had big and beautiful flowers I did not search for them in particular; instead I recorded them unexpectedly along the road; The third was saprophytic orchids which I wanted to take pictures of most and were the hardest to find; they only showed themselves on the ground during flowering seasons. Most people feel orchids hard to find and it is true indeed. When I first found wild orchids in the field I mistook clumps of Eria ovata Bulbophyllum retusiusculum with pseudo bulbs strung together and Thrixspermum fantasticum hanging on conifers as ferns or mosses. Without the guidance of knowledgeable friends most people would probably consider terrestrial orchids as weeds and neglect them as I did! | | | Small Bulbophyllum albociliatum is easily to be taken as ferns or mosses. Shot in Fuxing Township Taoyuan County. | | | | | | Thrixspermum fantasticum grows on high conifers. Shot in Pinglin District New Taipei City. | After going to fields and searching for orchids I found out that these places which had a rich orchidaceous ecology were at the same location where I searched for insects. I was intoxicated by familiar giant trees creeks in valleys and crisp cool air. My friends asked me “Why do these places have insects and orchids at the same time?” I replied simply “The natural environment remains pure without human development and destruction in forests so plants have original diversity and thereby various insect fauna.” When I first saw Bulbophyllum drymoglossum growing on the trunk I could not imagine that it was a kind of orchid. Its overlapping leaves had very similar shapes to commonly seen Lemmaphyllum microphyllum. If it were not for a long and thin pedicel with yellow and elegant flowers people would not imagine that pampered orchids would disguise themselves as ferns. | | | Bulbophyllum drymoglossum disguise themselves as ferns. Shot in Daxue Mountains in Taichung City. | It’s true that I hoped to see scenes of beautiful flowers when exploring for orchids. However nature was not like a movie which played based on scripts. Sometimes I had to visit again and again in order to take a nature photograph of the flowers. I still remember when I went to Yilan area with several friends in 2010 to take pictures of Dendrobium furcatopedicellatum blossom. Since Dendrobium furcatopedicellatum bloomed in the morning and withered at noon one needs good timing in order to take pictures of the flowering process. Local friends would help me by observing the daily state of the buds going back and forth. Then they were to inform us immediately the day before flowering I would be able to keep a record of the beautiful memories with ease the next day. Of course various situations could happen while we waited. Last year I originally planned to record the ecological environment of Dendrobium furcatopedicellatumagain. However my friend informed me that the place we went last time had disappeared with a mudslide in the windstorm disaster which took place this year. Although the forces of nature are horrible unpredictable uncontrollable it was still quite charming driving me to spend time searching for beautiful native orchids of Taiwan. | | | Dendrobium luzonense without flowering looks like a clump of grass. Shot in Taitung County. | | | | | | With gorgeous colors native Bulbophyllum fimbriperiantium of Taiwan can only be seen around Dahanshan in Pingtung County |
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