The soldier's orchid (Zeuxine strateumatica (Linnaeus) Schlecter) is native to Asia from China to the tip of India including Southeast Asia and adjacent islands. Linnaeus originally named the plant Orchis strateumatica in 1753, taken from the Greek strateuma meaning a band, company, or army. Schlecter moved it to genus Zeuxine in 1911.

Oakes Ames (Botanical Museum Leaflets, Harvard University, 1938) reported the appearance of soldier's orchid in 1936 in Indian River County, Florida. The tiny orchid is believed imported with seeds of centipede grass. Since then, soldier's orchid has spread across Florida to Georgia, Texas, and Louisiana. It has proved adaptable; the orchid is found anywhere from heavily shaded swamps to sunny, dry lawns.

Soldier's orchid is a 'here-now, gone-tomorrow' orchid. It emerges in winter, blooming in late December and January; within a few weeks, the plants vanish. The following year, they may return; then again, they may not.

According to Carlyle Luer, soldier's orchids come up where they may, "We had carefully marked the spot in our yard where naturally occurring spikes had stood, only to find them elsewhere the next season. For us they even refused to grow from manually strewn seeds. We knew places in which a lawn had been filled or covered by black dirt, only to have dozens of flowering plants appear the following January."

Luer credits Gordon Vickers on solving the here-now, gone-tomorrow habit in 1967. Vickers scattered seeds in pots and got two plants to grow. "After flowering, both plants died, but two new plantlets grew from the root of the larger of the two...."

Soldier's orchids have a charm not visible to the casual viewer. Luer enticed me to look closer, "The glistening mass of little white flowers with their protruding lips turn from orange to yellow as they age. When viewed through a strong [magnifying] glass, the lip appears to be composed entirely of a microscopic mass of sparkling beads." (The Native Orchids of Florida, Carlyle A. Luer, New York Botanical Garden, 1972)

Suburban lawns are often 'infested' with these orchids looking like so many toy soldiers scattered in the grass. The typical overreaction of the uneducated homeowner is to pay a chemical service to rid their lawns of these tiny plants. It is anyone's guess how much herbicide is sprayed on plants that are going to disappear anyway. Perhaps, though, the services are only spraying herbicide-scented water and charging for the feel-good experience.

Personally, the soldiers are welcome in my garden; I simply cannot get them to invade on a regular basis.