Orchids at the Lankester Botanical Garden

What it is

Charles Lankester, a British naturalist and coffee planter, collected orchids and other epiphytes, plants that grow on trees, on his farm near Cartago in the first half of the twentieth century. After his death the land was bought to preserve it and given to the University of Costa Rica, which opened it as a garden in 1973. It is now a centre for orchid research. Costa Rica has well over a thousand native orchid species, many of them tiny, and the garden grows a large share of them alongside bromeliads, heliconias, palms and a patch of regrown forest. Some orchid or other is in flower in every month.

Before you go

• February to April, the dry season, has the most orchids in flower.
• Bring a hand lens or use your phone's close-up mode. Many of the best flowers are a few millimetres across.
• It is about an hour from San José and pairs well with a trip to the Irazú volcano or the Orosi valley.

The flowers you will see

OrchidA vast family of colourful, often fragrant flowers found almost everywhere on earthHeliconiaTropical plants with bold, colorful bracts and banana-like leavesBromeliadsA family of tropical flowering plants from the Americas, including the pineapple

Also part of it, and being written: Guarianthe skinneri.

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Lankester Botanical GardenCosta Rica’s leading orchid and epiphyte garden and research center