{"id":619,"date":"2009-06-13T17:53:50","date_gmt":"2009-06-14T01:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/13\/rainforest-in-a-bubble\/"},"modified":"2010-04-09T20:21:01","modified_gmt":"2010-04-10T04:21:01","slug":"rainforest-in-a-bubble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2009\/06\/13\/rainforest-in-a-bubble\/","title":{"rendered":"Rainforest in a Bubble"},"content":{"rendered":"

The California Academy of Sciences<\/a>, located in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, is one of the world’s largest natural history museums. Among the many exhibits, the museum contains a remarkable 4-story rainforest housed in a dome. Inside the glass sphere, a spiral ramp allows visitors to explore the rainforest, starting on the ground and heading into the tops of the trees.<\/p>\n

\"Visitors<\/a>\"Viewing<\/a>\"View<\/a><\/p>\n

This Rainforests of the World<\/a> exhibit features the flora and fauna of Indonesia, Costa Rica, and Madagascar. It’s no surprise that orchids abound. Here are pictures of a few examples: a Phalaenopsis<\/a> species, an unusual Calanthe orchid from tropical Africa, and a jewel orchid with fascinating leaves. All enjoy the constant warm temperatures<\/a> and high humidity<\/a> inside the dome.<\/p>\n

\"Phalaenopsis<\/a>\"Calanthe<\/a>\"Jewel<\/a><\/p>\n

More than just a flower show, the exhibit provides an opportunity to see how orchids grow in the wild. The first photo in this next set shows how orchids grow as epiphytes, or air plants, along with bromeliads, ferns, and vines. By using their roots to hold on to trees, epiphytes take advantage of brighter light than they could receive on the shady forest floor. The 2nd photo shows an orchid attached to a branch. While some roots hold fast to the bark, others stick out in the humid air to catch moisture and nutrients. The 3rd photo shows orchids attached to a tree trunk. In the wild, the white roots hold on to the vertical surface, even in the face of strong winds and violent storms.<\/p>\n

\"Air<\/a>\"Orchid<\/a>\"Orchids<\/a><\/p>\n

That’s a small sample of the flora, and here are some of the fauna. Butterflies pollinate some species of orchids in the wild. These beauties paused long enough for our cameras. In the final photo, the bright colors of a poison dart frog advertise its bad taste to predators. They all play their parts in complex webs of life of tropical rainforests, and also this remarkable rainforest in a bubble.<\/p>\n

\"Blue<\/a>\"Tropical<\/a>\"Costa<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The California Academy of Sciences, located in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, is one of the world’s largest natural history museums. Among the many exhibits, the museum contains a remarkable 4-story rainforest housed in a dome. Inside the glass sphere, a spiral ramp allows visitors to explore the rainforest, starting on the ground and heading […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,20,10,6,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservation","category-misc","category-orchids-in-the-wild","category-photos","category-warm-growers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3051,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions\/3051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}