Photographs of the Atlantic Forest

These photographs are of the terrestrial and epiphytic flora of Araucaria Forests made as part of my Fulbright U.S. Scholar study of the Southern Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Among these, the gigantic, therefore ancient, Xaxim, or tree ferns, were of special interest. They, as well as all the other trees, are covered with a lush tapestry of epiphytes featuring mosses, huge, old bosses of slow-growing lichens, ferns, orchids, bromeliads and gesneriads.

I made these photos during collecting trips into a rare primary growth forest on the Emilio Einsfeld Fihlio Nature Reserve in the highlands of Santa Catarina state, another in nearby Friburgo, and one at a lower altitude near Florianopolis, Santa Catarina, where the first Cattleya purpurata orchids, (which must be called Laelia purpurata in SC!) were beginning to bloom.