Cigar Orchid Inventory at Big Cypress National Preserve 2021-2022 - Open Format Dataset

The cigar orchid is a Florida state-listed endangered species, made rare in southern Florida by historical over-collection for its unique beauty, in addition to habitat loss. It is largely restricted to a small number of cypress domes and freshwater sloughs in southwestern Florida, including the Big Cypress National Preserve (BICY). We established a baseline dataset on the population of cigar orchid at BICY, based on extensive field surveys within the following six regions: Fire Prairie Trail-East, Gator Hook Trails, and Florida Trail, Nobles Grade, North of Tamiami Trail (mainly the Skillet Strand), the Oasis strands, and North of I-75. These regions were chosen based on past or current known occurrences of cigar orchids. We conducted a total of 25 field searches of cigar orchids in BICY. We found a total of 85 cigar orchids and recorded their GPS locations along with their microhabitat information, i.e., host tree species, host tree DBH and height, and cardinal direction (i.e., face) on host tree. The total search area across regions adds up to 284.9 ha (i.e., 705 acres).