The endangered plant is coveted by collectors and has been extolled in a best-selling book ("The Orchid Thief") and a popular movie ("Adaptation"). Famous photographers and naturalists focus on capturing its fleeting image.

The ghost blooms in June, July and August, and then it's gone. Sightings of the flower and its pale, droopy petals are rare, mostly claimed by hardy souls driven to navigating the swampy wilds of the Fakahatchee Strand, an 85,000-acre linear state preserve in the Everglades.

So the news that a ghost orchid in full flower is perched 60 feet high in a bald cypress tree just 150 feet off the boardwalk at the National Audubon Society's Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary in Collier County is nothing short of amazing to those who have seen them and those who have sought them.

"It blows away anything I ever heard of," said Mike Owen, a park ranger who has spent nearly 14 years monitoring and researching the rare plants. "It's giant, with eight or nine blossoms." A tenth bud will probably flower soon, he said.

It's normally a big deal to see a plant with just three blossoms, said Owen, who works at the preserve, where he predicts there will be up to 27 ghost orchid blooms this year on 20 plants.

Ghost orchids bloom for about two weeks, sanctuary officials said, although they aren't certain how long this one has been blooming.

Part of the reason for this ghost orchid's record height and size is that "I think it's a super healthy, really robust plant," Owen said. "It's probably 30 years old. I mean, this is no spring chicken. It's been around."

Corkscrew's ghost orchid was discovered Saturday by two visitors who were looking for owls and just happened to look in the right place. Spotting an orchid from 156 feet through a confusion of vegetation in dappled light is like finding a needle in a haystack.

"There's a lot to be said for skill, knowledge and equipment," said Corkscrew volunteer Dick Brewer. "But when you come down to it, luck's what really matters. It makes you wonder how many other things are growing up there that nobody sees."

Corkscrew manager Ed Carlson said the plant was possibly decades old. The bald cypress on which it grows is about 400 to 500 years old.

"We've just never seen (the ghost orchid) before. I'm sure it's been blooming, but they bloom in June and July, and that's when cypress are leafed out," he said. "So, it's possible a cypress branch covered it up all those years and fell off in Hurricane Wilma. Who knows?"

When photographer Ralph Arwood of Naples heard about it, he hustled to the sanctuary to spend two hours sweltering in the humid, mosquito-rich cypress strand waiting for the right light to shoot the orchid.

"They're very rare, and this one is unusual because it has so many flowers," Arwood said. "They're pretty impressive flowers, too, as big as your hand."

Part of the lure is that the orchid is simply a fascinating species of plant, Owen said. The ghost has no leaves. "All it is, is a mass of roots with chlorophyll," he said. "The shape of it is very seductive and sensitive. They look like a leaping frog or ballet dancer bouncing in the wind and rain."

Ghost orchids are on the state's list of imperiled species, and its two biggest threats are habitat loss and poaching. On top of that, collecting wild orchids of any sort is illegal. Rangers and park workers are happy that this ghost orchid is so far away from wannabe poachers.