The most populous and by far most varied family of flowering plants in the world is the orchid family whose members can be found just about everywhere, every continent and subcontinent, except may on glaciers which consist of nothing but ice and in the most parched deserts which consist of nothing but sand that is entirely lacking in nutrients or moisture.

The Americas (North, Central and South) have been well endowed with a vast cornucopia of orchids and South America is fortunate to have been gifted with the largest proportion which include thousands of species but the following are among the most commonly found throughout the southern portion of the American continent:

• Gongora species
• Lepanthes species
• Paphinia species
• Platystele species
• Chondrorhyncha species
• Huntleya species
• Peristeria species
• Ornithocephalus species
• Brassia species
• Vanilla species
• Oncidium species

Ecuador, which is a rather small nation of the South American featuring a tropical climate, is home and habitat to well over 4,000 species of orchid plants that have thus far been formally identified. Some of the best known genera of orchids and those which are most frequently found in the country’s lush and humid rainforests are the following:

• Oncidioda Fading Rose
• Trichocentrum lanceanum
• Trigonidium ogerthoniznum
• Chaubardia heteroclite
• Cattleya iricolor
• Laelia gloriosa
• Anguloa ruckeri
• Max (fletchereana X sandereana)
• Maxillaria schunkeana
• Maxillaria striata
• Maxillaria rufescens
• Ada oconensis X Ada aurantiaca
• Ada aurantiaca X Brassia caudata
• Ada glumacea
• Cleistes rosea
• Oncidium fuscatum
• Phragmipedium pearcei
• Sobralia rosea
• Stanhopea aff. napoensis
• Pleurothallis marthae

Take a look at the following video that features just a handful
of orchids that are native to Ecuador. It’s breathtaking!

Since Ecuador has such an enormously diverse orchid population and some sources claim that it features the largest assortment of any single country in the world, Ecuador’s tourism heavily incorporates visits to orchid sites. Thus the Ecuadorian Amazon Expeditions are predominantly focused on orchid sightings.

For more information about tours through Ecuador, visit Metropolitan Touring, Ecuador Explorer, Adventure Life, Viator and others. Otherwise, just stick around our site at Orchid Care.org and learn a whole lot about orchid plants.

Filed under: Orchid Species

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