Trump Administration Suggests Listing Florida’s Elusive Ghost Orchid as Endangered

If you want to see a ghost orchid in the wild in Florida, typically you will have to hike for a very long time through the watery wilderness of the Everglades.

The trek will take you through swamps and sloughs and water that is anywhere from knee- to chest-deep. Past alligators and water moccasins and deer and barred owls keeping watch and, perhaps, an endangered Florida panther, the official state animal. The water itself is clear but colored, like tea, by the leaves of the thick canopy soaring high overhead.

Eventually, deep within the swamp, if you are lucky and the time of year is right, you may discover an elusive and mysterious flower suspended by spindly roots from Florida water ash, pond apple and bald cypress trees, as though the bloom is floating on air. In the trees’ shadows t