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Painting the Cowhorn Orchid, 4/11/2009
by Linda Apriletti on 5/7/2009 10:30:25 PM
Cowhorn Orchid on the Ghost Prairie, 10" x 12"
In early April I was invited by my friend Jeff Ripple to join him on a hike to find the cowhorn orchid (cyrtopodium punctatum) he had been told was blooming in the Everglades. Jeff is a natural history author and large format landscape photographer whose primary camera is a 4x5. Some of his photography can be seen on his website at www.jeffripple.com . Last spring Jeff went looking for this native orchid to photograph it but didn't have an accurate gps coordinate and never found it. This time we had a bit of trouble finding the beginning point but eventually got it right and started off on our hike through the mangroves. These native orchids are pretty scarce now as they are a victim of thoughtless orchid collectors so I did not record the gps like I do with most of my other paintings.
The mosquitoes were already pretty fierce after a bit of rain the week earlier and they made their presence known. I learned too that it is best to stay on the mangrove roots close to their trunks when hiking through them. Jeff made a mistep and ended up knee-high in very nasty smelling mangrove gunk early on. I took note of where he stepped and made it through clean. Then we arrived at the salt marsh and I never knew such a place existed in the Everglades. The colors all around us were amazing. The saltwort is filled with so much color from bright yellow-green to soft green with bits of crimson and orange. Scattered all around were white skeletons of very old dead buttonwood trees that had been felled by Hurricane Donna and the hurricane of 1935. We kept meandering here and there to each beautiful piece of dead tree photographing them and the blooming tillandsias. Everywhere I turned I could see paintings! I would have been happy just setting up there to paint some bromeliads and tree skeletons but we kept going in search of the orchid.
After walking for awhile, I noticed about 100 yards away a large mass of fuzziness of a different color and we headed in that direction, anticipating it might be the cowhorn (or cigar) orchid we were looking for. As we got close, I could see this orchid plant was truly magnificent. I've never seen anything like it. It had huge sprays of orchid flowers bursting from it in all directions and was out in full sun on top of a 5' stump. After admiring and taking some pictures, we then headed back to the van to get our equipment since I was going to do a plein air painting of the orchid while Jeff set up his 4x5 to wait for the right light to photograph it.
 The hike back with our equipment seemed noticeably shorter since we were focused on getting back to the orchid and setting up. By then it was around 5:30 so I laid out the paint and got to work getting down as much information as I could on my canvas about the orchid and surrounding local colors of that area. Since this is a one of a kind painting, I plan to use this study to make a larger studio painting this summer to be part of an Everglades collection that I'm working on. I want to reflect the vastness of the buttonwood graveyard more in that painting since it was an amazing location. I was using the last bit of sunlight to work on my painting and then packed up so we could hike out of there before it got dark. We had headlamps just in case, but I wouldn't want to try getting through those mangroves in the dark. As we were walking, Jeff made some comment about seeing some 'Big ole rattlers' when he'd been there before...I said "what!?!?!" and he said "never-mind, I'll tell you later." I was wearing the snake-proof gaiters he had offered which helped immensely with walking through the scratchy vegetation. We made it back through the mangroves without getting into the muck, quickly threw our gear into the back of the van and took off, leaving the swarming mosquitoes asking what happened to dinner. Then Jeff told me about the large rattlesnakes on the ghost prairie. It had been a great day I'm very glad they were not part of this adventure!
 
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