Orchids

We live in the land of orchids. 

In 2013, Ecuador was designated as the País de las Orquideas, the Nation of Orchids. More than 4,300 native species of orchids live out their lives rooted into the barks of trees in our cloud forests, hidden by streams or on hilly banks in the páramos and deserts of our Andean mountains or in the riverine lowlands of our Amazon.

There are over 18,000 species of plants in Ecuador.  And of those 18,000, one in four of these, is an orchid. Compare this to the continent to our North where--across the entire spread of the United States and Canada with those extensive plains and low mountains--only 320 species of orchids have made their home there. While Ecuador is tiny in size, radical shifts in its altitudes, temperatures and wind currents rising from the Amazon in the East and the Pacific Ocean to the West-- create innumerable niches where orchids reach out to new pollinators and together they evolve. 

​Orchids display adaptive potency through the dazzling range of their beauty. ​