Lost orchid species rediscovered in Florida swamp

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It was about lunchtime, and the three men had been traipsing through the swamp at Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park in Florida for a couple hours.
They did not know they were about to step into the botanical history books with the rediscovery of a lost orchid species.
But there it was the Cyclopogon elatus, a flowering spike shooting up from a rotting log in the park west of Copeland, Fla.
"It's a pretty big find," Fakahatchee Strand park biologist Mike Owen said.
Not since 1961 in Miami-Dade Count, Fla. -- and, before that, 1881 in Hernando County -- had anyone recorded seeing the species, according to the orchid lover's bible, "The Native Orchids of Florida."
"It's really only kind of orchid nerds who are going to appreciate this, but it's kind of cool," Miami environmental scientist Chris Little said.
He was the first to spy the orchid, just minutes after he split from his two hiking companions to better cover a particularly promising-looking slough in the middle of the preserve.
The trio was participating in the annual spring survey of leafy treasures at the 75,000-acre preserve, widely regarded as the Orchid Capital of the nation.
At first, though, all Little knew was that he hadn't seen an orchid like it before.
He called over Keith Bradley, a botanist, and University of Miami deputy policy chief Russ Clusman for a closer look.
"Russ and Keith thought a moment and Russ, with much excitement, blurted Cyclopogon elatus!!!" Little wrote on the photo-sharing site Flickr.
Other surveyors, hearing the celebration that erupted in the middle of the swamp, followed their ears to find out what all the commotion was about, Owen said.
"We knew they found something good because they kept calling," he said.
Good news travels fast in the orchid community and, by this week, orchid expert Paul Martin Brown already was trying to arrange a visit see Cyclopogon elatus for himself.
"It's a big deal," he said from Ocala, where he is a research associate with the University of Florida Herbarium.
The Fakahatchee find is a double win: it's a whole new location for the orchid, and there's lot of them there, Brown said.
By the end of the day, Little and his fellow surveyors had found 92 of the orchids growing within a mile or so.
In 1961, orchid hunters John Beckner and Carlyle Luer found only three of the plants growing in a hardwood hammock in Miami-Dade.
Could it have been growing undetected in the Fakahatchee all this time? Maybe, Owen said.
At 19 miles long and five miles wide, the Fakahatchee is a big target for orchid seeds blown by hurricanes or dropped by birds.
Previous surveyors easily could have missed the little plant if it wasn't blooming, he said.
The Fakahatchee's central slough, where the orchids were found, is not an easy place to get to in the first place.
Owen plans to send one of the specimens to the University of South Florida, where it will be preserved for future research.