Asian orchid right at home in Florida

MIAMI, July 5 (UPI) -- A tiny orchid from Southeast Asia appears to be making a home for itself in Southeast Florida, botanists said.

The plant has been identified as Eulophia graminea, although it is obscure enough that the first person to notice it was not aware of its identity, The Miami Herald reported. Harvey Bernstein is a curator at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden but had never seen that particular plant.

The orchid produces green flowers with white and pink lips. In Florida, it grows only in cypress mulch.

"It's a very tough, strong orchid that seems to pop up from very small seeds that find what they need in that cypress mulch,'' said Suzanne Koptur of Florida International University.

Koptur, Bernstein and other experts are still curious about how the orchid got to Florida. In addition to Southeast Asia, it grows on some subtropical islands in the Pacific and has become naturalized in parts of northern Australia.

They say it may have been acquired by orchid fanciers through the Internet or been imported accidentally in wood chips.