Ionopsis satyrioides

[Ricardo in PR]

I live in the natural habitat of this small epiphytic orchid. It grows on the tips of the branches of guava trees and occasionally on other trees. It appears to kill the twigs on which it perches and it is common to find plants in the forest litter that have fallen from the canopy because the twig in which it lived decayed too much. On occasion a complete branch of a tree will die if it has a heavy load of these plans. How the orchids kill the branches is not clear. Sometimes I take the plants from the ground and perch it on nearby bushes but it appears that they cannot survive well away from the canopy. The seedpod is somewhat round and spiny. Amazingly I found a plant growing on a dry leaf that had become entangled in an adult plant roots.