Rio Rincon and Casa Orquideas, Golfo Dulce, Costa Rica
We lifted the anchor about midnight, and sailed another 60 nautical miles round the point of the Osa Peninsula and into the spectacular and very calm Golfo Dulce, one of the deepest gulfs of its size in the world. We awoke this morning to breathtaking scenery. With crystal clear waters reflecting the clouds, and a spectacular forest all around, we set out to walk, kayak or take a Zodiac cruise along a mangrove area and up the Rincon River. We saw a large array of bird species and some interesting plants.
Back on board, we re-positioned to a very special place inside the Gulf: Casa Orquideas. This is a tropical garden accessible only by boat and owned by a delightful American couple named Ron and Trudy McAllister. There are a profusion of orchids and other tropical plants and many birds may be spotted, including parrots, tanagers and toucans.
Most of us were a bit in awe, when we saw the size of the plants that we know as houseplants, maybe four times larger than our own. The plants that mostly caught our attention were the bromeliads, heliconias, and orchids, as we learned a lot about their biology.
The bromelias are a large family of plants that include the pineapple, the Spanish moss, and various green house ornamentals and houseplants. Most of them are short-stemmed herbaceous plants with basal rosettes of stiff, often spiny, leaves, which frequently have colored bases. The least specialized plants are terrestrial; the more specialized tank types have still larger leaf-base tanks. These tanks may hold up to 5 liters (over a gallon) of water and contain a considerable amount of flora and fauna including tree frogs and various species of insects.
The heliconias are a large family of Neo-tropical plants that look very much like birds of paradise, but are not even related to them. Their most notable characteristic is that they have leaves have been modified to attract pollinators. These modified leaves, known as bracts, are hard to protect the flowers and colorful to attract hummingbirds, which are their main pollinators, to the otherwise drab colored flowers. Heliconias are of rather high economic importance as ornamentals, but are important in the forests as pioneer plants in open areas and gaps.
Distributed throughout the world, except for a few isolated islands and Antarctica, orchids are developed from seeds so small, some are only a couple of cells big. These minute seeds require the help of a fungus in a special symbiotic relationships to germinate. About half of the species are terrestrial with normal roots, and most of the remainder species are epiphytes. Many species have special water and nutrient storage organs called “pseudobulbs.” Another characteristic feature of orchid flowers is the great range of scents produced as an integral part of the pollination mechanism—from rotting carrion to sticky sweet vanilla-like odors to very pleasurable perfumes. Bees, wasps, flies, ants, beetles, hummingbirds, bats and frogs have all been observed pollinating orchids. Despite of their fame, orchids are of little economic uses, except for vanilla, “salep,” and the floricultural industry.
What ever the species or kind of flower we thought the best, we could not stop wondering how does someone end up constructing and living in their own tropical paradise, and would we be able to do the same?
We lifted the anchor about midnight, and sailed another 60 nautical miles round the point of the Osa Peninsula and into the spectacular and very calm Golfo Dulce, one of the deepest gulfs of its size in the world. We awoke this morning to breathtaking scenery. With crystal clear waters reflecting the clouds, and a spectacular forest all around, we set out to walk, kayak or take a Zodiac cruise along a mangrove area and up the Rincon River. We saw a large array of bird species and some interesting plants.
Back on board, we re-positioned to a very special place inside the Gulf: Casa Orquideas. This is a tropical garden accessible only by boat and owned by a delightful American couple named Ron and Trudy McAllister. There are a profusion of orchids and other tropical plants and many birds may be spotted, including parrots, tanagers and toucans.
Most of us were a bit in awe, when we saw the size of the plants that we know as houseplants, maybe four times larger than our own. The plants that mostly caught our attention were the bromeliads, heliconias, and orchids, as we learned a lot about their biology.
The bromelias are a large family of plants that include the pineapple, the Spanish moss, and various green house ornamentals and houseplants. Most of them are short-stemmed herbaceous plants with basal rosettes of stiff, often spiny, leaves, which frequently have colored bases. The least specialized plants are terrestrial; the more specialized tank types have still larger leaf-base tanks. These tanks may hold up to 5 liters (over a gallon) of water and contain a considerable amount of flora and fauna including tree frogs and various species of insects.
The heliconias are a large family of Neo-tropical plants that look very much like birds of paradise, but are not even related to them. Their most notable characteristic is that they have leaves have been modified to attract pollinators. These modified leaves, known as bracts, are hard to protect the flowers and colorful to attract hummingbirds, which are their main pollinators, to the otherwise drab colored flowers. Heliconias are of rather high economic importance as ornamentals, but are important in the forests as pioneer plants in open areas and gaps.
Distributed throughout the world, except for a few isolated islands and Antarctica, orchids are developed from seeds so small, some are only a couple of cells big. These minute seeds require the help of a fungus in a special symbiotic relationships to germinate. About half of the species are terrestrial with normal roots, and most of the remainder species are epiphytes. Many species have special water and nutrient storage organs called “pseudobulbs.” Another characteristic feature of orchid flowers is the great range of scents produced as an integral part of the pollination mechanism—from rotting carrion to sticky sweet vanilla-like odors to very pleasurable perfumes. Bees, wasps, flies, ants, beetles, hummingbirds, bats and frogs have all been observed pollinating orchids. Despite of their fame, orchids are of little economic uses, except for vanilla, “salep,” and the floricultural industry.
What ever the species or kind of flower we thought the best, we could not stop wondering how does someone end up constructing and living in their own tropical paradise, and would we be able to do the same?
