Dendrophylax lindenii
There are a few plants in the world that capture the imagination, inspire intense followings, feature prominently in art, and have books written about them.
Ghost orchids are some of these types of plants.
The ghost orchid (Dendrophylax lindenii) was the focus of Susan Orlean’s best-selling book “The Orchid Thief” and the movie adaptation that starred Meryl Streep.
Enthusiasts obsessively watch and track these plants with remote cameras, eagerly anticipating their bloom cycles.
These are plants that inspire, surprise, and delight anyone who gets to know them.
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I’m not going to lie, this isn’t a plant for the beginner or even intermediate grower.
Trying to cultivate ghost orchids is definitely an advanced project and even experienced orchidists struggle.
In this guide we’ll discuss some growing tips, but we’ll focus primarily on learning more about these unique plants and where you can see these endangered species in their natural habitat.
Here’s the lineup:
What Are Ghost Orchids?
Dendrophylax lindenii (formerly classified as Aeranthes lindenii, Polyradicion lindenii, and Polyrrhiza lindenii), the infamous ghost orchids, are extremely unusual plants.
As with many other orchids, they’re epiphytes, which means they grow attached to other plants, usually trees.
They aren’t parasites and they don’t draw nutrients from the plant they live on, they just use it as a support base.
Part of the Epidendroideae subfamily of orchids, D. lindenii have thin, narrow stems, and their leaves hardly seem to exist at all. What’s left is a beautiful white orchid flower that seems to float around the trunks of trees in tropical climates.
The flower is highly fragrant, with a fruity, apple-like scent. Each bloom has an upper dorsal sepal, two side petals, two lower sepals, and a labellum at the base.
It’s the labellum that makes these plants so unique. They are comprised of two long tendrils that twist and twirl. Sometimes, they look like the legs of a leaping frog.
The flowers are fairly petite, at up to one and a half inches wide and three and a half inches long.
That comes as a surprise to people when they see this plant for the first time, since in photos they tend to look a bit bigger than they actually are.
The plant technically has leaves, but they are small, scale-like growths that are hardly even noticeable unless you get right up close.
When not in bloom, the plant looks like a mass of greenish-brown-gray roots clinging to the tree. These chlorophyllous roots actually photosynthesize in the absence of the leaves.
The roots have white streaks known as pneumatodes, which exchange oxygen and carbon in a similar way to the leaves on most plants.
Each root is encased in a velamen, which absorbs nutrients and water for the orchid.
D. lindenii starts blooming in the late spring and flowers last through mid-summer, though they can bloom outside of this period when they’re in the right mood.
Each raceme has up to ten flowers, with only one open at a time and lasting for up to two weeks.
The plant can have numerous racemes, so each plant can have a bunch of ghosts floating around at a time.
Don’t confuse D. lindenii with the British ghost orchid (Epipogium aphyllum).
The latter is a terrestrial orchid that was thought to be extinct in Britain but a specimen was recently discovered growing in the wild in 2024.
Cultivation and History
Ghost orchids were first discovered in Cuba by a Belgian plant collector named Jules Linden in 1844. They’re also native to southern Florida and other parts of the Caribbean.
In Florida, they’re usually found on pond apples (Annona glabra), bald cypress, Florida buttonwood, various palms, and pop ash trees (Fraxinus carolinianas).
Unlike bird’s-nest orchids which you can’t grow at home, it’s technically possible to cultivate D. lindenii, but it’s very hard. Even experts struggle to keep them alive.
That’s partially because these plants grow in a symbiotic relationship with species of beneficial fungi in the Thelophoraceae family.
They also rely on native pollinators like the fig sphinx moth (Pachylia ficus), giant sphinx moth (Cocytius antaeus), gaudy sphinx (Eumorpha labruscae), streaked sphinx (Protambulyx shigilis), and other hawkmoths.
So it’s not commonly seen in cultivation.
Unfortunately, D. lindenii is endangered in its native range. In Florida, there are probably only about 1,500 specimens left, with about 500 in Cuba.
Of those remaining in the wild, less than half seem to be able to reproduce, indicating that the conditions aren’t right for reproduction.
Fans track the blooming of the “super” ghost orchid in Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary.
It was first spotted in 2007 and since then it has performed year after year with up to 40 blossoms per season. It even puts out flowers all year long, to the delight of fans.
Orchid lovers celebrated when a specimen being cultivated at the Kew Botanical Gardens finally bloomed in 2023.
While it’s illegal to take them from the wild, there’s not much point in doing so anyway, because the plants rarely survive. However, their numbers are still being decimated by poachers continuing to steal them.
That’s not to say that there aren’t sellers out there with specimens that were legally propagated, so be sure to do your research prior to making any purchase.
As mentioned it’s not easy to cultivate ghost orchids as they require very specific conditions to thrive, but I’ll provide an overview of how to grow these plants if you are keen for a challenge.
Where to Buy
Be absolutely sure that you’re buying a plant from a reputable seller who isn’t selling poached specimens.
There are plenty of experts propagating via tissue culture out there, so it’s totally possible to buy a young plant from an orchid specialist.
Avoid purchasing seeds. They’re probably not the real thing and growing orchids from seed is tough to begin with, let alone trying to grow something like D. lindenii.
To get your hands on a plant, check out orchid specialists or reach out to your local orchid society.
They can point you in the right direction and will probably know the reputable sellers in your region, if there are any.
How to Grow Ghost Orchids
Growing a ghost orchid isn’t an endeavor for the beginning or even a moderately experienced orchid grower.
Ideally, you’ll have experience cultivating mounted orchids, because these absolutely won’t survive in a bark mixture in a pot.
And it’s important to note that plants can take up to 15 years to mature and flower, even in the wild, so this isn’t a project that provides instant gratification.
I will add that I never want to discourage a gardener from trying to grow anything. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to growing plants.
If you are willing to try something and accept that you might fail a few times before you get it right, I say go for it!
I can’t grow a Boston fern to save my life, while all my friends tell me it’s their easiest houseplant.
But I can make a maidenhair fern flourish, while many gardeners say it’s their most challenging houseplant.
It’s not that I’m magically gifted, I just happen to have the right conditions and the appropriately heavy watering hand for maidenhairs. But clearly, I lack the ability to make a Boston fern happy.
If you have never kept a moth orchid (Phalaenopsis spp.) for more than a year, that doesn’t mean you won’t have the right combination to grow ghost orchids. Try it out!
You need a spot with temperatures of about 65°F at night and 85°F during the day. The absolute minimum acceptable nighttime temperature is 60°F and the minimum during the day is 75°F.
If temperatures climb to 90°F or higher, it’s time to open the windows, vent the greenhouse, turn on the AC, or whatever else you can do to relieve the heat.
Throughout the year, ghost orchids need high humidity to thrive. Think about the conditions of a boggy or swampy area in southern Florida. It’s muggy. Your growing area should be, too.
If you don’t have this naturally, you’ll need to recreate it. A small mist humidifier won’t work.
You need something large enough to humidify your entire growing space and to keep that humidity constant without dips and surges.
The space should be kept consistently between 65 to 85 percent humidity, but if you can program your humidifier, let it drop to the lower end during the day and up to the higher end at night.
This happens naturally in nature, because as the temperatures rise the humidity generally drops.
Bonus points if you use an ultrasonic humidifier that produces fine water particles rather than large ones.
You’ll need to use a fan in the space to help circulate the air and prevent fungal issues.
By now, you’re probably thinking that this isn’t a plant that is ideal for the average household conditions, and you’re right.
Most orchid experts grow D. lindenii in a greenhouse so that they can create the specific conditions the plants require.
Most of us don’t have the right conditions in our homes and to be successful will need to construct a specific growing area.
Your plant will need to be mounted on hickory or other furrowed bark wood. You want to find a piece of wood that has lots of channels and crevices, that’s part of the secret to keeping ghost orchids happy.
The channels in the wood help protect the roots and give them space to stay humid and cool. If you use a flat piece of wood, the roots would be more exposed.
You don’t need to use a large piece. Anything about twice the size of the plant you’re starting with is fine, but there is nothing wrong with going bigger.
If you do everything right, your plant will grow huge, with roots crawling up to two feet in both directions, so you don’t want to be constantly reattaching them.
When you have chosen the wood, use cyanoacrylate adhesive like Gorilla or Krazy glue to very carefully affix the roots to the wood. Only glue the parts of the roots that touch the wood, don’t cover the top of sides.
You should glue the roots into the channels of the bark to recreate the conditions the plant would naturally grow in. You’re basically doing the attachment work that the specimen would do on its own over the course of several years.
Finally in the mounting process, you want to stick Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) on top of the roots.
Tuck the Spanish moss over and in between roots, if they’re accessible. You can glue this, too, or secure it using twine or something similar.
It’s important to purchase or find live Spanish moss, not decorative dead moss.
My guess is that live moss helps because it contains beneficial goodies that help the orchid survive, but there’s no specific research to tell us exactly why it helps.
In the wild, D. lindenii grow with their roots tucked into the moss on the tree, so they clearly have a symbiotic relationship, and scientists are currently studying the relationship.
The live moss will also tell you if the conditions are right for your plant. It can be a guessing game to determine if you’re giving a specimen with no leaves and only rare flowers the conditions it needs to thrive.
Since the moss likes a similar environment as ghost orchids, if it seems to be doing well, your orchid will hopefully thrive, too.
Once you’ve mounted your plant, it should be kept in bright, indirect light or dappled sunlight and the humid conditions described above.
In a greenhouse, cover the growing area with 35 to 50 percent shade cloth. The day length should be about 12 to 14 hours, so you might need supplemental lighting during the shorter winter months.
Keep the roots moist during the majority of the year. The roots of mature plants need to be allowed to dry out a bit just before flowering.
You’ll want to water them once a week or less during December, January, and February so the moss just begins to dry out. Once the flower stems start to develop, you can return to watering normally.
Now, take a hint from bonsai growers and buy some rapeseed cakes.
These are long-lasting sources of fertilizer that recreate the kind of feeding these orchids would experience in the wild as debris rains down on them from the canopy of the tree.
Set or wire a cake or two at the top of the moss so that when you water, the nutrients will be washed down into the moss for the roots to access.
You can find rapeseed cakes in packets of six from Bonsai Boy.
Replace the cakes every six months.
It can take up to 15 years for D. lindenii to mature, even in the wild, so a lot of patience is required. In the meantime you’ll be tending to what is really just a large mass of roots.
As the roots grow and spread, you’ll need to keep adding live Spanish moss to cover them.
With all these conditions in place and when the plants are mature enough, you should see flowers in the spring.
Observing Ghost Orchids in the Wild
If you want to find D. lindenii in the wild, it’s possible, but remember to take only photos, and leave the wild specimens alone.
In fact, you might not even want to tell anyone where you saw them, to avoid tipping off poachers.
Right now, conservationists are petitioning to make the ghost orchid protected under the Endangered Species Act in the US.
D. lindenii is already protected under local state laws, so don’t attempt to collect any part of the plant as this is strictly prohibited. Two people were caught and prosecuted in 2022.
D. lindenii is already under enough threat from habitat loss and climate change, they need all the support they can get.
With so many tissue-cultured propagules out there, the wild specimens aren’t even worth that much money any more.
I’m passionate about the protection of endangered species, so please do your best to ensure that their environment is left alone as much as possible.
In Florida, these plants are known to grow in Audubon’s Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, the Big Cypress National Preserve, Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park, and the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge.
They can also be found in other conservation areas in southern Florida and in some tribal areas in Collier and Hendry counties.
There are rumors that they can be found in Lee county, but D. lindenii hasn’t been definitely documented in the area. If you find some, be sure to let the South Florida Orchid Society know!
Wear your hip waders because you’ll be slogging through the muck, and use a GPS locator and make sure you tell your family or friends where you will be exploring.
Familiarize yourself with the dangers in the area, bring lots of water, and your camera!
If you find a cluster of roots that you suspect could be a ghost orchid, but it lacks blossoms, look at the roots a bit more closely.
The silver or white lines along the roots should tip you off that this is likely a ghost. Other epiphytic species in the area don’t have the silver line.
Mythical, Magical, But Not Spooky
Ghost orchids are fascinating. Whether you want to try your hand at growing one or to check them out in their native habitat, you’re experiencing a plant that has inspired artists, hobbyists, experts, and even the most casual plant fan.
If you have had any success growing ghost orchids, would you please share your experiences and photos in the comments section below? We’d love to see your setup and successes so we can share with other enthusiasts!
Want to learn more about growing and caring for orchids? Maybe learn about some that aren’t so challenging to care for? We’ve got you covered! Check out a few of our other guides next:
