Butterfly Orchid

I always assumed that the Florida butterfly orchid, Encyclia tampensis, got its name because it looks like a stylized butterfly, but I likened it to a butterfly for the way its flowers dance and flit  in the slightest breeze. Reading up on the plant for this post, I found that this resemblance to the fluttering of the butterfly's ephemeral wings often is cited as the source of the name, so I wasn't as original as I had thought!

Encyclia Flowers Dance in the Breeze

Encyclia is a smallish genus in the orchid family. It once was included in the Epidendrums, and fairly recently taxonomists have split out Prosthechea from Encyclia, so the classification probably will change again.

The name "Encyclia" comes from a Greek word meaning "to encircle." That's because the outside of the lip of these orchids wraps around the column, the reproductive structure in the center of the flower. The Florida butterfly orchid was first discovered around the Tampa area, hence its specific name, "tampensis," but its range is much larger, from the Keys to north-central Florida.

Though it varies pretty widely according to growing conditions, Encyclia tampensis is a  small plant. One or two leaves are produced from a  swollen storage organ called a "pseudobulb," which can be round or more elongated. The pseudobulbs are anywhere from a quarter-inch to at most an inch in diameter, and a half-to-one and a half inches tall on average. The somewhat succulent leaves can be a few inches to 5 or 6 inches or more in length, depending on the individual plant and its habitat. Each pseudobulb produces one blooming spike, and slowly declines over the next 3-5 years. Some people remove the dead pseudobulbs. Otherwise they either fall off, or just become incorporated within new growth. Left to its own devices Encyclia tampensis eventually forms a mound-shaped colony.

Encyclia tampensis Pseudobulbs and Leaves

The butterfly orchid flowers from late spring through August, but its peak season is now - June. This plant in bloom can be spectacular A flowering branch can have up to 45 flowers, but the plant is lovely even with fewer blossoms. The flowers last a long time - about a month. I don't get too many seed pods, so the pollinator - a wasp or a bee - evidently doesn't visit our yard regularly or in great numbers.  The flowers close much more quickly when pollinators are active, so some people bring their Encyclias indoors to enjoy the blooms longer.

Seed Pods

 I bring some smaller colonies onto the patio to be enjoyed from inside the house, but leave my largest colony outside. It's happy where it is, and I can see it from the patio. Also, a large colony tends to have creatures living in it, and I hate for anoles to get lost in the house. They're next to impossible to catch, and inevitably end up dead. There might even be a small snake hidden amidst the pseudobulbs and leaves, and they don't do well inside either.

Encyclia tampensis Flowers

The bilaterally symmetrical flowers are an inch to inch-and-one-half wide and tall. Petals and sepals are a green-bronze, sometimes more  yellow, sometimes tinged with brown or maroon. They are quite attractive, though my attempts to render them in watercolor or colored pencil usually end looking muddy. The lip is clear white with a magenta or lavender splotch in the middle. The variety 'alba' has lime-green petals and sepals and an all-white lip.

Encyclia tampensis 'alba'

The flowers also have a delightful fragrance, which comes and goes during the day - the pattern with most fragrant blossoms. It sometimes is described as vanilla- or honey-scented. To me, it has an undefinable light sweet odor, not the heavy tropical fragrance of a gardenia.

Though once common, Encyclia tampensis now is neither common nor rare, and is protected by the state. Its natural occurrence continues to be depleted by illicit collection and habitat destruction. Collectors, even those harvesting plants from private property, and sellers must have a state permit to be legal. Fortunately there are several reputable nurseries offering this plant, so there really is no need for taking them from the wild unless it is a salvage operation.

This plant often is found in or around swamps. It likes to grow on trees such as oaks, pond apples, buttonwood, cypress, and more rarely, pine. Instructions for its care tend to emphasize maintaining high humidity, but I would temper that advice. The plant also occurs in scrub, and as a Florida native is adapted to seasonally dry periods. I have seen colonies in scrub that were so stressed they were purple-gray, but they still were very much alive. It should not be placed in potting soil. It's an epiphyte - the roots serve primarily to anchor it, not for nutrient and water uptake. Some of my butterfly orchids are in pots, but the substrate is lava rock, charcoal and large wood chips. The plant likes to attach itself to the terra cotta as well.

E. tampensis on Pine at Naples Preserve - A Scrub Habitat

My plants get very little TLC, and do just fine. In the dryest weather I check them for scale. They are in filtered light - protected from the worst sun exposure, but still in conditions bright enough to make blooms. Those in too much shade grow ok, but don't flower. If they are lucky they get a sprinkle of diluted orchid fertilizer once or twice a year. If I notice that there aren't many new pseudobulbs forming, I remount the plant, relocate it, give it a little more attention, or all 3. I don't worry that much about watering them during the dry season, but if we get prolonged hot and windy spells, I will give them an occasional sprinkle.

Encyclia tampensis Flower Closeup

A virtually pest-free, no-care native plant with spectacular long-lasting flowers and delightful fragrance  - does it get any better than this?

Article, photos,  and illustrations are the work of Jeanette Lee Atkinson, and are protected by copyright.

Summer Fragrance

One of the things that defines the transition from spring into summer here in the garden is fragrance. It starts with the Gardenia, whose heavy tropical fragrance  envelopes you like humidity, feels liquid enough to drink. Gardenias seem to suggest a seductive beauty, sultry southern nights, the songs of Billie Holiday. Sticking your nose into a gardenia flower and inhaling is near-intoxicating, as "high" as I need to be.


Since gardenias love acid soil, keeping one remotely happy in our alkaline conditions is a constant struggle, and Irma's salty winds set it back even more, but it still bloomed.  Right now it is teetering between permanent decline and slow recovery. Perhaps I should just replace it. The front yard, more protected from salty winds and a little shadier, might be a better location, but the front is crowded already. I would have to redo the area by the front door or dining room window (same area) so that we would be able to enjoy the perfume. Just one of the many landscaping dilemmas one runs into in a  garden, especially one as small as ours.


If the gardenia is like a heavy wine, the frangipani, Plumeria sp., is more like a refreshing sip of lemonade. Plumerias practice deceit pollination. Their light, sweet odor promises nectar, but the flowers don't deliver. Insects, especially the sphinx moth, keep looking for the nectar in vain, thereby transferring pollen.  Traditional Hawaiian leis are made of frangipani blossoms.

Yellow and White Blossoms Are More Frangrant Than Reds and Pinks

Frangipani copes with winter drought and cold by losing all its leaves, and the turgid, lumpy, leaf-scarred stems look dead. The first new growth and the flowers sprout from the very tip of the stems, and have an oddly other-worldly effect when in bud, like some growth out of science fiction.

New Leaves and Flower Buds

Frangipanis typically grow wider than tall. Thanks to Irma, our frangipani is leaning pretty badly. I may try to stake it, or just leave it as is, pretending I'm striving for a more picturesque effect. Before I do anything, I have to remove a mass of Gaillardias, but they're still blooming vigorously.


The flowers of Jamaica caper (Capparis cynophallophora) and 7-year apple ( Genipa clusiifolia) begin opening about the time the gardenia peaks. Just breathing near these 2 shrubs on a warm, late afternoon is a sensuous - even sensual - experience. This is when the white flowers begin serioiusly releasing their fragrance, sending olfactory signals to lure the moths that will pollinate them overnight. They are visited by day-flying insects and butterflies as well, and emit periodic bursts of fragrance throughout the day.

"Morning After" Pink Flowers

When in bloom Jamaica caper is one of our most beautiful native plants. White 4-petaled flowers open in late afternoon or early evening and in the course of the next couple of days morph through a suffused pink to deep maroon before falling. Numerous long stamens whose filaments go through the same color progression as the petals radiate out from the flower's throat, creating a startling beauty.  During the day the flowers can be humming with bees and small flies. I have noticed monarchs nectaring on them as well.

Jamaica Caper in Bloom

The plant's glossy evergreen leaves, which reflect light strongly, make the plant attractive even when it is not in bloom.  Rufino Osorio writes, "The leaves are an extremely dark green .... The effect is hard to describe - the plant appears both dark and bright at the same time." (A Gardener's Guide to Florida's Native Plants, p. 239). Numerous scales give the undersides of the leaves a scurfy appearance. New twigs are cinnammon brown, and older wood is gray.

Jamaica Caper Inflorescence

The seed pod is a brown pod 4 - 8 inches long. The pods on my shrub are more like 3 - 4 inches long. Linnaeus thought they resembled a dog's phallus, hence the species name, cynophallophora. Folks in those days apparantly were less prudish than we are, despite  our foul language, and called things as they saw them. The inside of the seed pod is bright red, and the open pods extend the decorative  phase of the shrub. Cardinals and mockingbirds relish the seeds.

Open Seed Pods

Jamaica caper is an absolutely "cast iron" landscape plant in frost-free areas of Florida once it is established. An inhabitant of coastal hammocks, it is both drought and salt-tolerant. It is untroubled by disease or pests. Occasionally ours shows some light damage from the leaf-rolling larva of some insect. Only  once in the past 20+ years has it become noticeably defoliated, and it recovered quickly and completely. I never water it, though since it is close to the seawall, its roots no doubt reach into the brackish water table. During a close pass of a hurricane years ago, salt/brackish water 1-3" deep covered the root area for several hours during high tide without doing any damage.


Our Jamaica caper was not damaged much by Hurricane Irma. Again, the root area was under water until the storm surge subsided. In fact, much of the back yard was covered during the surge, but no plants suffered any noticeable dmage from the inundation. (The surge line didn't reach the gardenia). I can't remember if or how badly the Jamaica caper was defoliated. There was just too much other stuff going on. There were very few broken branches. In any event, now you'd never guess it had been through a hurricane, while the eastern side of the bougainvilleas in the front yard is still not completely leafed out.


I haven't made a  satisfying watercolor of the Jamaica caper flowers in all the years we've lived here. My quick studies don't capture the glossiness of the leaves or the combination of grace and sturdiness that characterize this lovely plant. But I try.

Jamaica Caper

Next up : 7-year apple.