# Vivs and dendrophylax lindenii



## Guest (Feb 16, 2004)

I was wondering if anyone has tried to culture dendrophylax lindenii in a viv. For the latin disabled, dendrophylax lindenii are ghost orchids. They were the orchids from Adaptation and The Orchid Thief. I am getting two in and have found that they need the humidity and heat that is pretty comparable to those needed for darts. They are definitely not an orchid for anyone without a glowing green thumb. Although they are from Florida, I it thought it would be amazing to seem a cute little bastimento sitting on a ghost flower.


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## skinnybonedog (Feb 18, 2004)

*Yep, I tried and failed*

Hi,

I had a Ghost Orchid I tried to raise in a vivarium...had no frogs in the tank. From what I was told from the source, the Ghost Orchid does not like much air movement as most orchids do and it also likes really high humidity and pretty high light...I gave it all those things but it did not thrive and eventually the roots started to turn brown and after a few months there was not much left green to speak of. I was very sad ....let me know if you have success. Who are you getting yours from...they are pretty hard to find and quite expensive when you do find them.

If you should find you have trouble with the Ghost Orchid you might try some of the Chiloschista orchids...also leafless orchids somtimes called the Asian Ghost Orchid, and they do really well in vivarium conditions with high lighting. My largest one just finish blooming and it was quite a sight as it had two spikes come out at the same time with each spike producing around 15 yellow/orange flowers each....really cool!

Thanks,
Tammy


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## Homer (Feb 15, 2004)

How is your Ghost Orchid doing, Joe? I have been thinking about these as well . . . .

Tammy, are your Asian Ghost Orchids still doing well? Have they bloomed again? Thanks for the info!


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## Guest (Oct 6, 2004)

I would think it's worth a shot...if you're willing to chance it. Otherwise, I think you'd have to set up some sort of orchidarium or enclosure to create conditions similar to a frog viv. As Skinny said, these things tend to require minimal air movement (I've often seen the word "stagnant" used to describe their requirements) so if for some reason you have a CPU fan in the viv, I'd lose it.


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## jhupp (Feb 27, 2004)

A subject close to my heart. Or atleast the study organism of my thesis.

Lighting wise I would think they would be fine in a viv. Light saturation occurs in other photosynthetic orchid roots at around 300 umol/m2/s (full sun being around 2000). So they should do fine in the upper portions of a well lit setup. As for air movement, beacuse of how/where this species grows it tends to not get a lot of air stirred at its surface. So, stagnat might be good. But you have to rember that the velamen must be able to dry out. The other thing, and this is why most people lose them, is that they should either be mounted on a living or an inorganic substrate. The Florida Museum of Natural History grows all thier leafless species on plastic baskets. And Selby Botanical Gardens grows their D. lindenii on a potted Pond Apple.

There are maybe a dozen or so species of Dendrophylax out there, that range from Florida throught the Carribean and Central America. So it might not be that big of strech to think of dart setting on one of the flower, just not D. lindenii.


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