Needleroot Bentspur Orchid (Dendrophylax filiformis)
Description
Campylocentrum filiforme ranks among the most bizarre of all of our native orchids. What people universally regard to be the -orchid-, and I am referring here to the plant body, in this species has become reduced to an extreme degree. The stem of this plant has been reduced to the point that it barely reaches a centimeter in length. And the centimeter of stem that comprises the plant body is practically invisible due to the many roots that surround it. In this species the roots dominate to such an extent that the plant is predominantly a tangle of roots with the stem forming a vanishingly small proportion of the biomass of the plant. As a result this plant is the orchid world equivalent of a ghost. Due to the apparent absence of a stem most people fail to recognize this plant as an orchid or even as a discrete plant. Perhaps a particularly observant person might notice that there are orchid roots growing around the twigs and branches but since there are no leaves in sight anywhere it is probably that it will fail to perceive that the tangle of roots itself is the orchid.
Taxonomic tree
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Domain: Eukarya
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Kingdom: Plantae
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Phylum: Magnoliophyta
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Class: Liliopsida
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Order: Asparagales
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Family: Orchidaceae
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Genus: Dendrophylax
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