It was September 1975. Roger Hammer packed his camera, six canteens of water, two compasses, an Army jungle hammock, dried fruit, beef jerky, and other light rations before he headed to the Everglades in his Volkswagen van.
He drove 90 miles from his home in Homestead to Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park, home to 50 native orchid species. That鈥檚 about half of Florida鈥檚 orchid diversity and a fourth of the species in the U.S. and Canada.
But Roger, then 32, was looking for just one: Lepanthopsis melanantha, the tiny orchid.
Roger, now 79, has continued to spend much of his time chasing down and photographing the state鈥檚 most elusive flora. Florida alone boasts the greatest diversity of orchids in the continental U.S., but today, three-fourths of its orchids are listed as endangered or threatened. Humans and their insatiable poaching appetite for the rare flowers are putting Florida鈥檚 last remaining species at unprecedented risk, and climate change is only making matters worse, as are sea-level rise, saltwater intrusion, heat waves, and urban sprawl.
But Roger has done much more for the orchids than take their beauty shots and publish them across more than eight guidebooks. His highest degree is from Cocoa High School, yet he regularly educates authors, botanists, and students about Florida鈥檚 native orchids and other wildflowers. For his contributions, Florida International University awarded him an honorary doctorate of science in 2012. Key among them was discovering two species new to Florida: Maxillaria parviflora, the purple tiger orchid, and Pelexia adnata, known as Hachuela. Both are listed as endangered. There鈥檚 even a plant named after him: the recently discovered Euphorbia hammeri.
He laughs about all this starting with $25. That was how much it cost to buy Dr. Carlyle A. Luer鈥檚 鈥淭he Native Orchids of Florida鈥� at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami in 1972. The book inspired him to go on his orchid safaris throughout the state, eventually finding and photographing all 98 remaining native orchid species out of the roughly 110 native to Florida. The other dozen have been wiped out.
A Flor(id)a Man
Roger regularly often embarks on 200-mile solo canoe trips up, down, and across the state of Florida. He has paddled up the Caloosahatchee River to Lake Okeechobee, reeled in sailfish off the coast of Miami, and camped on many a riverbank for the multi-day, backwoods excursions.
Sometimes, he gets lost. He鈥檒l realize he turned into a wrong tributary and has to paddle his way back to the main river. Then, he鈥檒l try another tributary. 鈥淢y life,鈥� he says, 鈥渉as always been like that.鈥�
Roger is an apt candidate for Key West鈥檚 annual Hemingway look-alike contests 鈥� although it鈥檚 his neighbor down the street who actually competes in them. He dons an Everglades ball cap and a coral-colored fishing shirt the day we meet. The Cocoa Beach native tells me he grew up surfing and sunbathing until he was drafted for the Vietnam War and sent to a base on Okinawa. He still remembers some rusty Japanese. When he returned to Florida in 1968, the 24-year-old had 鈥渘o purpose in life,鈥� he says. So he took a job at a University of Miami shrimp farm near Turkey Point, the nuclear power facility about six miles east of Homestead.
Not long afterward, he purchased Luer鈥檚 orchid book and became obsessed with its 102 native orchids. (Eight weren鈥檛 yet identified). It became his mission to photograph them all. Soon enough, Roger landed a job at Castellow Hammock Preserve, a nature center in Miami, and went on to lead nature tours he called 鈥渨ildflower walks鈥� at Everglades National Park.
滨迟鈥檚 humid and sunny in mid-August when I park my car beside the decorative flamingo on the wooden fence surrounding Roger鈥檚 home. Inside the gate, I鈥檓 greeted by Layla and Satine, Roger鈥檚 two dogs; one of about a dozen cats; and a large cage full of parakeets. But those are just the domestic animals.
Roger鈥檚 yard is a one-acre haven of botanic bliss. Tropical plants form a walkway from the gate to the porch, and critters adorn their branches. We stop to admire the caterpillar of a Florida atala butterfly, a rare species presumed extinct until Roger rediscovered it on Virginia Key off mainland Miami in 1979. He and other conservationists then led a successful campaign to re-establish the species, which earned him a small mention in a 1996 issue of National Geographic.
A few steps farther, I see the blurred wings of blue jays as they flit among the canopies. 鈥淏lue jays are screaming,鈥� Roger observes as we tour the foliage. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a new hawk in the yard, a Cooper鈥檚 hawk.鈥� On his property alone, Roger and his neighbors鈥攊ncluding world-renowned ornithologist John Ogden鈥攁nd other Tropical Audubon Society birders have tallied 147 bird species and 66 butterflies.
Sometimes, green, blue, or black-crowned night herons pay a visit to his fish pond. At the pond鈥檚 edge, tiny wooden crates hold the roots of several endangered orchids. 鈥淭his thing right here, this is Vanilla dilloniana,鈥� he tells me. 滨迟鈥檚 a relative of the vanilla we get our extract from, and it鈥檚 now extinct in the wild. He runs inside and comes back out with a jar of vanilla pods from the orchid that have soaked in vodka for a year 鈥� his own vanilla extract.
We walk from a shampoo ginger plant to a large seagrape tree from Costa Rica to a rare Lignum vitae, a broad-leaf tree native to the Florida Keys. People have offered him thousands of dollars for that Lignum vitae, but no price could convince Roger to relinquish his protection over it. These plants are safe in Roger鈥檚 fenced-in yard, but for the dozens of native orchids scattered across Florida in odd places, from swamp to suburb, reality is much more grim.
鈥楾hey鈥檙e Being Loved to Death鈥�
Roger doesn鈥檛 know what it is about orchids, but people 鈥済o crazy鈥� over them 鈥� similar to how birders travel far and wide to see a single species with their own eyes. When I told Roger he strikes me as the birder of orchids, he agreed.
After Hurricane Andrew tore through Miami in 1992, orchid thieves swarmed to the fallen trees near Deering Estate to grab what they could. When people find fallen orchids, Roger grumbles, they often say, 鈥淥h, it was laying on the ground.鈥� His response is usually, 鈥淲ell, stick it back in the frickin鈥� tree!鈥�
That鈥檚 what Roger did after the storm, using Liquid Nails to glue the orchids back to the trunks of living trees. They鈥檙e still there today.
Orchids are Earth鈥檚 most diverse plant family in the world. Varieties date back to the early 20th century, when collectors looking to make a buck in European markets scavenged the Everglades for their colorful charms.
鈥淭here was kind of an orchid fever,鈥� says Jennifer Possley, a botanist at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. 鈥淧eople would just go in with wagons and load the wagons up with orchids harvested from the Everglades or other regions around here and sell them.鈥� Today, it鈥檚 less of an issue, but some poaching still happens. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e being loved to death,鈥� Possley adds.
Earlier this year, law enforcement intercepted an t to steal the super-rare ghost orchid, which is a . Yet the species remains unprotected after U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials to list it as endangered in January. During a visit to Fairchild, Possley took me to a hidden corner of the botanic garden to see the famed orchid. Its delicate white pedals hung like fangs on a pillar about 10 feet away from the walkway, intentionally located in a hard-to-reach spot.
Orchid poaching has long been an issue, but the bigger anthropogenic threat is climate change. Sea-level rise, climbing temperatures, and intensified storms are placing fierce pressures on some plant species more than others, explains Jason Downing, an orchid biologist at Fairchild.
Coastal populations, like the mule-ear orchid, are especially imperiled by hurricanes and storm surges, he says. As a Caribbean species, they鈥檙e adapted to periodic storms, but 鈥渢he frequency and intensity may be happening at a rate that they can鈥檛 co-evolve with,鈥� he says.
Another issue is the warm, dry atmosphere of urban heat islands. Buildings, pavement, and other human-made infrastructure 鈥渢rap鈥� heat in condensed areas, which can cause changes in local weather patterns, such as decreased precipitation. Orchids that are adapted to these drier conditions have a better shot at survival, Downing says. But orchids that require certain levels of humidity and freshwater, like the ghost orchid, may be less suited for these changes. Their host plants are at risk, too: Orchids dependent on coastal trees that aren鈥檛 salt-tolerant may dwindle.
Pollinators are also important. A native oil bee, Centris errans, lives only in Miami鈥檚 pine rockland forests, an ecosystem that has shrunk to less than 2% of its original scope. The , Byrsonima lucida, but cowhorn orchids 鈥� the largest of which was in Everglades National Park 鈥� trick the bees into pollinating them, as well. Without these bees, Downing says, both plant species would likely suffer.
The good news? The entire family, Orchidaceae, is listed in , a treaty designed to protect threatened wildlife from international trade. But there鈥檚 another looming threat that has swallowed up thousands of other wildlife species around the world: habitat loss from urban development. 滨迟鈥檚 an issue plaguing the natural areas surrounding Roger鈥檚 home, turning more rare and endangered orchids into mere memories.
The Impossible Scavenger Hunt
I don鈥檛 expect to hear the voices of Doris Day and Frank Sinatra when I climb into Roger鈥檚 tan Chevy Silverado, especially after he riffed about his long-haired 鈥淶Z Top days鈥� in the 鈥�70s. His hair, now white, is still long and tied back in a small ponytail at the nape of his neck.
On our way to the Everglades, just a 20-minute drive from his house, we chat about how congested Homestead has become. Droves of people have moved to this rural stretch of cultivated land between Miami and the Keys known as the Redlands. We drive past the occasional dragon fruit or sugar cane plantation, but Roger points out the plots where large developments have replaced farmland. They鈥檝e replaced orchids, too.
Another reason why orchid conservation is so difficult is because it鈥檚 not possible to survey every inch of land across the state 鈥� and even if it were, it wouldn鈥檛 provide a true count. Orchids don鈥檛 bloom year-round, making them easy to miss, and sometimes, seeds can stay buried in the soil for years before they take root.
Our first stop is a small patch next to an electrical box where Roger wants to 鈥渃heck on something.鈥� When we pull off the side of the road, he leans over his window and groans. 鈥淵eah, they got rid of it.鈥� There used to be an orchid there, he tells me, Eulophia alta. When it鈥檚 not flowering, it can look like nondescript blades of grass. The park鈥檚 mowing crew likely cleared the patch with a weedeater. I can hear the disappointment in his voice, but he has seen this sort of thing many times before.
We drive past hiking trails and administrative buildings until we reach the spot where Roger parks the truck, and we hop out. I follow him as he walks offroad into the grass. Then, as I鈥檓 looking at another plant, I turn to see him pointing at an unassuming bush.
鈥淚s that it?鈥� I ask.
鈥淵ep,鈥� Roger says. 鈥淗adn鈥檛 been seen in a bazillion frickin鈥� years.鈥�
滨迟鈥檚 Bletia patula, the Haitian pine pink orchid. To be precise, a 鈥渂azillion鈥� was actually 58 years before a park researcher spotted its pink-purple petals in 2005. In its current non-flowering state, I would have easily mistaken it for any one of the similar-looking bushes around it, and suddenly, I feel guilty of the weed control we witnessed on the side of the road a few minutes earlier. Other orchids have gone unseen for even longer, like the Cranichis muscosa, which was rediscovered 101 years after its previous sighting in the Fakahatchee.
We cross the street and find another small stand of Haitian pine pink. Suddenly, Roger reaches down and starts yanking an adjacent plant. It doesn鈥檛 budge, so he tries again. 滨迟鈥檚 shoebutton ardisia, Ardisia elliptica, which is native to Southeast Asia. 鈥淐ategory one invasive,鈥� he says, pulling it so hard that clumps of dirt come up with the roots. That鈥檚 one way 鈥� Roger鈥檚 way 鈥� of protecting orchids. But there are other ways, too.
Seeding the State
In 1938, Marjory Stoneman Douglas joined David Fairchild and a handful of other conservationists in establishing Fairchild鈥檚 namesake botanic garden as a haven for tropical plants from around the world. But these days, the estate鈥檚 biologists have put native plants at the forefront of their work. The garden is brimming with thick islands of foliage, each tree and flower tagged with a metal identification plate. Way in the back of the garden, just beyond a bronze statue of Marjory herself, a brightly lit research lab houses the future of Florida鈥檚 orchids.
Inside, hundreds of plastic containers line the shelves. Each contains a thin layer of black carbon gel that helps budding orchid seeds germinate by slowing the growth of harmful fungus and mold. When they鈥檙e big enough, they are transferred onto sphagnum moss or burlap and taken to a plant nursery, Fairchild鈥檚 Possley explains.
滨迟鈥檚 part of an orchid restoration effort called the Million Orchid Project, and as the name suggests, its goal is to reseed a million native orchids in public spaces across South Florida 鈥� spaces where people feel a sense of ownership over local conservation, says Downing, the director of the program.
Most are planted by students from about 150 participating schools, but other community groups have joined the volunteer effort. Now in its 10th year, the project has surpassed its halfway goal, with 570,000 orchids planted across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties.
鈥淭hese [orchids] really are tropical jewels,鈥� Downing says. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e an iconic part of our sub-tropical climate, and that鈥檚 really important that we want to preserve that biodiversity for future generations.鈥�
Wrong Turns and Tributaries
By the time Roger and I return to his backyard paradise, the midday sun has given way to August鈥檚 characteristic afternoon thunderstorm. As we sit in the truck waiting for the rain to let up, Roger begins flipping through the pages of one of his guidebooks, rattling off facts about each species. 鈥淚 took that in my yard,鈥� he says about several of the photos.
Each year, the rarest orchids become increasingly difficult to find, Roger says. But if a species can be rediscovered after 101 years 鈥� and if two previously undiscovered species can be identified by a single man 鈥� that could mean there鈥檚 more out there.
That鈥檚 what keeps Roger going on miles-long hikes and canoe trips through Florida鈥檚 inaccessible recesses, even at an age when many of his friends and colleagues have passed away. He pours one out 鈥� literally 鈥� on their death anniversaries, each marked on his calendar like a lunch date.
A few weeks after my visit, Roger sends me an email about his eight-mile humid hike through the Everglades looking for two rare orchids. He didn鈥檛 spot them, so he鈥檚 going out the next day on his bicycle to cover more ground. Even at 79, despite dermatologists telling him to stay out of the sun, as wives have come and gone, as friends have passed on, Roger remains the determined, self-taught naturalist inspired by a $25 book at a botanic garden.
鈥淚t was all those lucky tributaries,鈥� he says, 鈥渢hat led me where I wanted to go, or didn鈥檛 know I wanted to go.鈥�
Back during my visit, a light spray hits the left side of my body from the downpour as I sit with Roger underneath his patio overhang. To reward us for our orchid search, he reaches into his patio fridge for two ice-cold bottles of Chimay, his favorite Belgian beer. He pours us each a glass, and we toast to orchids, to biodiversity, to Marjory, and to the swampy state we both call home.
This story was produced in partnership with the Florida Climate Reporting Network, a multi-newsroom initiative founded by the Miami Herald, the South Florida Sun Sentinel, The Palm Beach Post, the Orlando Sentinel, SA国际传谋 Public Media and the Tampa Bay Times.
