Taiwan’s Wonderful Wild Orchids

In 2011 the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute announced new sightings of two wild orchid species: the thin-ridged lip vanda and the horse phalaenopsis.

The thin-ridged lip vanda (Vanda lamellata) was rediscovered by TFRI’s own Chung Shih-wen. The plant is Taiwan’s only vanda orchid. There were once large colonies in the forests of southern Orchid Island, but with high commercial value, they were virtually wiped out. A specimen hadn’t been seen in Taiwan for more than 40 years. The horse phalaenopsis (Phalaenopsis equestris) had been out of sight for even longer: a full eight decades.

Chung and his team of researchers had been looking for the thin-ridged lip vanda for many years, and they finally came across dozens of them flowering on a sheer cliff wall on Orchid Island, 100 meters up. 

The horse phalaenopsis, on the other hand, was discovered on uninhabited Lesser Orchid Island by Hung Hsin-­chieh, a nature photographer, and Yeh ­Ching-long, a professor at National Ping­tung University of Science and Technology. It was no easy feat to get there: The island has no dock, so after passing through turbulent currents on a fishing boat, they had to swim the last 30-40 meters and then clamber up a volcanic cliff.

Changing careers half way through life to pursue his true passion, Lin Wei-min has traveled from Taiwan to northern Thailand in his search for wild orchids. (courtesy of Lin Wei-min)

Passionate pursuit

“Looking hard for rare species of orchids offers no guarantees that you’ll find them,” says ­Chung. “A lot depends on whether the gods of fortune shine on you.” 

Lin Wei-min, author of A Field Guide to Wild Orchids of Taiwan, has had such good fortune. Once, after a typhoon, some friends happened upon a fallen tree in the mountains of Wu­lai, and they brought a log from it back to him with an orchid hanging off it. Under his care it bloomed, and turned out to be Luisia cordata, which no-one had seen for 70‡80 years.

As for his namesake Bulbophyllum albociliatum var. weiminianum, Lin discovered it one rainy, misty day in a deciduous forest along the Southern Cross-Island Highway, at an elevation of 1800 meters. “Because I noticed that there was something different about the plant, I brought a few sections back to cultivate.” The following year, Taiwan orchid expert Lin Tsan-piao confirmed that it was a unique variety of B. albociliatum.

Halfway into a career at the Central Weather Bureau, Lin Wei-min left to pursue his passion: searching for wild orchids. ­Chung caught orchid fever when he was in college and then gradually took steps to pursue his passion for taxonomical research. The blood, sweat and tears that the two of them have shed on behalf of orchids laid the groundwork for their illustrated guidebook: A Field Guide to Wild Orchids of Taiwan.

First published in 2003 by Big Tree Culture Enterprise, the book is a compendium of information about more than 100 orchid species that the authors gathered over 150 trips into the mountains. In 2006 they expanded it to cover 280 varieties of orchids in three separate volumes. Then in 2014 the Dr. Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation Center published The Wild Orchids of Taiwan: An Illustrated Guide, which is an English-language book that covers the 428 varieties Lin had recorded by 2012.

In 2008 the Forestry Bureau and the Taiwan Society of Plant Systematics published ­Chung’s two-volume Chinese-language Wild Orchids of Taiwan. A first for Taiwan, the book includes 362 separate species and varieties of orchids, all photographed in the wild. In 2015, using Wild Orchids of Taiwan as a foundation, ­Chung expanded the material into The Hidden Treasures of Taiwan’s Wild Orchids (Owl Publishing), with photographed varieties reaching a total of 409. This year he has taken over responsibility for the eight-volume A Field Guide to Plants in Taiwan, which records 4700 plant species native to Taiwan, including 469 orchids. He anticipates that all eight volumes will take about one year to update and rerelease.

In the belief that “heaven rewards the diligent,” Chung Shih-wen, an orchid expert with the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, has spared no effort in his quest for orchids.

Why are orchids so captivating?

Orchids are a family of plants that demonstrate a particularly high level of variability. Unlike most flowering plants, which have separate male plants with stamens and female plants with pistils, orchids combine their reproductive organs in a single gynostemium column, at the top of which is the male anther containing packets of pollen. “Just three calyxes, three petals, and one gynostemium—with these simple elements, orchids have evolved a rich and amazing variety of forms.” There are ­orchid flowers that resemble pots, slippers, bees, spiders, curly ribbons, duck profiles and so forth.

Botanists estimate that there are between 25,000 and 30,000 species of orchids around the world. By including hybrids, you can add another 10,000 to the total. Taiwan has a natural environment much better suited to orchids than Korea or Japan. Wu­lai in New Tai­pei City; the Fu­shan Botanical Garden in New Tai­pei and Yi­lan; Jian­shi in Hsin­chu County; Xi­tou, Lian­hua­chi and Mt. He­huan in Nan­tou; Er­wan­ping on Ali­shan in ­Chiayi County; Qin­shui­ying and the mountains of Man­zhou in Ping­tung; Mt. Nan­ren and Mt. ­Shouka in Ping­tung and Tai­tung; and Mt. Du­lan and Orchid Island in Tai­tung, are all locations that wild orchid researchers recommend as “orchid hotspots.” You can find saprophytic orchids growing hidden underground, terrestrial orchids growing on the ground or in piles of rotting leaves, semi-terrest­rial orchids growing on dry fallen wood, lithophytic orchids growing on cliff faces, and epiphytic orchids, the ones people are most familiar with, growing in trees. Taiwan has examples of each of these types.

The horse phalaenopsis (left) and the thin-ridged lip vanda (below), had not been seen in the wild for many decades. Then wild specimens of both were spotted in 2011.

Taiwan: Island of Orchids

Chung thus describes Taiwan as an “island of orchids.” The problem is that although Taiwan is indeed an island with numerous orchids, it isn’t easy to spot them in the wild. Never mind finding rare or endangered species: Even flowering orchids whose substantial populations in the lowlands are regarded as safe and well established—such as March’s cleric’s collar orchid (Zeuxine gracilis); April’s Chinese spiranthes (Spiranthes sinensis), which is the world’s smallest wild orchid; or May’s Taiwan ground orchid (Bletilla formosana)—require a lot of diligence to find. One reason is that the plants are quite small and tough to spot without bending over. Another is that they tend to get picked. Chinese spiranthes is valued in herbal brews and in chicken soup as a remedy for rheumatism, so it ends up getting ruthlessly cut as soon as it blooms. Meanwhile, the bamboo orchid (Arundina graminifolia) and Eulophia dentate are disappearing from their native habitats and have been declared endangered.

Nevertheless, Lin observes that people don’t typically drive orchid species to full-on extinction by picking them: “It’s the cutting of virgin forests that poses the biggest threat.”

The good news is that human cultivation of attractive species can give them a new lease on life. For instance, the peacock orchid (Pleione formosana) of the Ali­shan area and the bamboo orchid of Tai­pei are both being cultivated. And wild orchids are left to their own devices in remote places designated as plant refuges.     

The horse phalaenopsis (left) and the thin-ridged lip vanda (below), had not been seen in the wild for many decades. Then wild specimens of both were spotted in 2011.

Wild and wondrous

People have a deep thirst for making a connection with nature. Greenhouse orchids may be beautiful, but the experience of seeing one isn’t as deeply moving as encountering an orchid in the wild. ­Chung knows a retired engineer who began to look for plants in the wild after his retirement. After reading ­Chung’s Wild Orchids of Taiwan, he began to look for these “pandas of the plant world.” Over a period of four years, he has already photographed more than 300 of them.

Wild orchids are out there, but you’ve got to leave the comfort of civilization to hike, climb and get your hands dirty—that’s the only way you’re going to see non-domesticated orchids.

And however comely their blooms, remember, pleads ­Chung, “to leave these amazingly beautiful plants where you find them in the wild.”

In 2014 Lin Wei-min’s English-language guide to 428 of Taiwan’s wild orchids was published by the Dr. Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation Center. (photo by Chin Hung-hao)

Liparis amabilis (courtesy of Lin Wei-min)

Luisia cordata

Bulbophyllum albociliatum var. weiminianum

Bulbophyllum albociliatum

The lawn orchid (Zeuxine strateumatica) (courtesy of Lin Wei-min)

Calanthe arisanensis (courtesy of Lin Wei-min)

The world’s smallest orchid: the Chinese spiranthes, or Spiranthes sinensis. (courtesy of Lin Wei-min)

Because people like to pick them, wild orchids are getting harder and harder to find. The photo shows the hyacinth orchid (Bletilla striata).