HA! I had that exact same thought. Hope it drives out the pythons/anaconda and some of the people that make their living capturing them can have a hay day. Our natives will bounce back. No worries. FIre is hard to see the aftermath, but after just a short amount of time the growth from it is astounding.

I know it will come back and even more beautiful, but it's still sad. I was particularly thinking of the ghost orchids, but they've survived thousands of years of fires there, so I guess they'll survive this one too. I heard there is a breeding program for them now, and they've been reintroducing them to the Everglades. Such amazing plants.

Rita, how exciting! I remember reading that there are certain growers certified to sell ghost orchids, but they are ungodly expensive. There is also some sort of hybrid they've developed that can be sold. It looks and acts just like a ghost orchid, but isn't true genetically.

When I lived in North Port, my friend who lived in Punta Gorda lived around a lot of undeveloped land, and we used to get on her ATV and go hunt native orchids. Some of them just look like weeds. I never would guess they were orchids.

Thanks for the link! Going there now.

Rita, can you enlighten me about this quote from that wonderful website? About E. tampensis, of which I have a bunch of bulbs blooming currently: "Various species of bees are the actual pollinators of this species and not butterflies, and they go to it with vigor. Anyone growing cultivated plants of this species (legally obtained, of course) anywhere in the state of Florida (including northern Florida) would do best to bring this plant indoors while flowering, or they will be met with a number of wilted flowers and growing seedpods within just a few days of when the flowers first opened." Mine flower just fine for weeks each summer, so therefore do the bees not find them?

Gosh, Irma, I don't know how you determined that I am any kind of expert on orchids, because I'm not! I just happen to be lucky enough to have 3 natives growing on my property. I haven't the faintest idea about that but I'm sure that if you contacted Prem he would tell you - he's a very nice guy.

Surprising the Glades don't burn more often considering how much of the water has diverted over the years to satisfy the desires of cities and towns as the population has grown there.

Paul, they drained the Everglades to make agricultural land for sugarcane production, not for cities and towns. Most of that land has now been restored to swamp land by a huge land buyback and restoration project that is ongoing.

There is a cultivated ghost orchid blooming at Naples Botanical Garden on a

Pond Apple Tree.

They have tours that include a Ghost Orchid in the Everglades. Their population has rebounded. Don't be sad about Natures way of fertilising. I lived in florida for a long time. Happens every year. Cry about the orchids and Broms being killed for strip malls and housing developments

Broms are better left in nature. I hate them in the neighborhood. They are mosquito breeders. They hold water...

shavedmonkey, I used to have a large number of very large bromeliads, and some small ones too. I bought the BT granules (if I could find them) or the pool dunks that kill mosquito larvae, and put them into the cups. It's totally natural, and if you can't find the granules, just smash up the pool dunks and put a few granules in each cup. I had to use about 1/2 tsp each for my giant broms, but the small ones only took a pinch. If you have a hard rain that washes them out, just put more in. They're relatively inexpensive.

Around here, I keep water out for the squirrels and other critters, and I dump it every day to keep mosquitoes out. They seem to breed overnight.

I did that and it wore me out. I still do it for my pineapples. Bromeliads are nice but not worth the mosquito problem. My view.

I understand.

I beleive the fires were in western Broward county. This would mostly be the vast sawgrass areas. I remember these burning repeatally back in the 70s & 80s. Alleygater Ally was a constant parade of snakes & small critters escaping the fires. Back in the 70s drought the dried muck caught fire. That fire burned for months.