Rising from the Crypt
Triumph of the Dracula orchid
Story and Photographs by Jason Harpster
If you think getting there is half the fun, then I submit you’ve never tried transporting a Dracula orchid across state lines. It’s not for the faint of heart.
In September of last year, I attempted just that, driving to the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden in Belmont, South Carolina, in an SUV tricked out as a traveling hothouse. The idea was to show my Dracula woolwardiae ‘Southern Pines Stalwart’ at the monthly Carolinas gathering of the American Orchid Society judges. The reality proved to be an emotional roller-coaster.
Because the Dracula orchid hangs in a basket and the flower comes out from underneath, cramming it into a box was a nonstarter. Instead, I strung a clothes bar — the kind you hang suit jackets on — across the back of the SUV and suspended the basket from it. Using the cigarette adapter on the car, I hooked up an AC inverter that allowed me to run a humidifier I had pirated from our living room. I even had a gallon jug of water in reserve in case the humidifier ran dry. The setup worked so well it created a cloud in the rear of the SUV that rolled toward the front like coastal fog every time I turned a corner. I felt certain I was going to be pulled over by a state trooper convinced he was busting Cheech and Chong.
While the plant was in pristine condition when I left Southern Pines at 8 a.m., by the time I arrived roughly three hours later, my Draculas looked like balloons with half the air let out of them. They had become limp and lifeless. What had begun as a good idea had morphed into a learning experience. Or so I thought.
Dracula woolwardiae is an Ecuadorian species found on the western slopes of the Andes in dense cloud forests between 4,000 and 6,000 feet above sea level. It was first described by Friedrich Carl Lehmann in 1899 during the golden (and rather cutthroat) days of orchid exploration when rich European families backed expeditions to the jungles of Central and South America looking for new species to hang their names on.
Lehmann named it woolwardiae in honor of Florence Helen Woolward, an English botanical illustrator and author. They worked closely together for more than 10 years on the compendium The Genus Masdevallia, a work of over 400 illustrations commissioned by the ninth Marquess of Lothian that took Woolward two decades to complete.
As luck would have it, this particular meeting of the American Orchid Society judges included a guest speaker (a past president) and a PowerPoint presentation on the finer points of judging Vandas. Normally, if an orchid flower is damaged, it’s done. It’s never going to come back. Dracula flowers, however, are different. I moved the humidifier inside, plugged it into the wall and hung the plant over it. An hour later, when the PowerPoint was over and the lights came back on, the Dracula had come back to life. The flowers literally reinflated, fully open and beautifully displayed, and were perfect by the time the judging started.
My Dracula woolwardiae ‘Southern Pines Stalwart’ was given an award of merit. The flowers scored 83 points, which made ‘Southern Pines Stalwart’ the highest scored and, arguably, the finest example of the species on record in the world.
It’s comforting to know that, in Southern Pines, even our vampires are beautiful. PS
Jason Harpster is an accredited American Orchid Society judge and works at his family’s business, Central Security Systems. He hopes to share his collection of 2,000-plus orchids by starting a botanical garden in Southern Pines.