COPELAND, Fla. — It takes a lot of nerve to step into a swamp.

First, there's the shock of the cool water lapping up to your thighs.

LARRY BLEIBERG/Dallas Morning News (ENLARGE)
Guide Bill Mesce leads Cornelia Meier through Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park in the Florida Everglades. Meier is a former earth science teacher from Switzerland.
LARRY BLEIBERG/Dallas Morning News (ENLARGE)
Florida's Fakahatchee Strand has some of the rarest orchids in North America. When not in bloom, they are unassuming.
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Then there's the uncertain footing through hidden muck.

And finally comes the moment when something bumps into your leg beneath the dark water.

Was that a submerged log or an alligator? Minutes later, your heart is still racing.

The question all this suggests is obvious: Why in the world would anyone do this?

The answer: flowers.

More specifically, it's orchids that inspire people from around the globe to visit the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park, a 70,000-acre wilderness on the west edge of the Everglades. The ecosystem is home to 44 species of orchids, the highest concentration and variety in North America.

The park had a moment of celebrity with the 2002 release of the Oscar-winning movie "Adaptation," which starred Meryl Streep, Nicolas Cage and Chris Cooper. The film was loosely based on the nonfiction book "The Orchid Thief," which followed a nursery manager who masterminded an effort to illegally harvest the park's rare plants.

I loved the book's odd characters but was especially fascinated by the swamp. When I checked the park's Web site and learned a monthly swamp walking tour coincided with an autumn visit to South Florida, I made plans to be there.

But when the day arrived, it was pouring. Rain fell so hard that I had to slow my rental car to a crawl as I drove the Tamiami Trail highway from Miami across the Everglades to the park. I wondered if the walk would be canceled.

Only two guests showed up — a woman from Switzerland named Cornelia Meier and me. The two volunteer guides didn't seem disappointed.

Bad weather doesn't discourage swamp walkers. Guide Bill Mesce said he prefers the park in the rain. "It's almost religious out there."

Mesce, a Vietnam veteran and amateur photographer, lives across the road from park headquarters in the tiny town of Copeland. He has explored the swamps for years. Lead guide John Elting retired from investment banking and took courses to be certified as a University of Florida master naturalist. He had driven two hours from Sanibel Island for the morning hike.

After introductions at the building that serves as park headquarters, we followed the guides' car through a maze of dirt roads cut out of the swamp more than a half-century ago by loggers.

The Fakahatchee Strand has been called the Grand Canyon of Florida. But unlike other canyons, this depression is measured in inches, not feet. The slightly lower ground level is enough to create different climatic zones. Botanically speaking, it's a bit of the tropics in the middle of subtropical Florida, Elting explained.

Although the park is home to panthers, bears, mink and boars, its most famous resident is the ghost orchid. This rare flower with long, curved legs blooms only in the summer. The roots blend into the tree trunk that supports it, making the bright white flower appear to float in air.

We weren't going to be able to see it in its glory, but our guides still wanted to show us the plant. Before the trip ended, we'd find six or seven orchid species and one extremely rare fern.

We began hiking down a side trail and spooked a red-shouldered hawk into flight. Royal palms, some 90 feet tall, poked their bushy heads above the tree line.

Elting stopped to show us a known alligator habitat — a gator hole, he called it. "That swamp lettuce is a sure sign," he said, pointing to leaves floating in the water and looking like Monet painted them there. (Sure enough, when we passed the spot again a few hours later, an alligator was sunning in the path.)

In a few minutes, we stopped in front of an opening in the foliage and lined up to step down into the swamp.

This, Elting said, is the only way to understand the Fakahatchee. "People need to make a psychological or physical investment. You can't really experience it by driving down a highway. You have to get out and wade in it."

He went first. I was second in line.

I've never bungee-jumped or sky-dived, but I now think I understand the dread that comes before the first leap.

The water was cool. The mosquitoes disappeared. In front of me lay a snarl of trees, vines, snags and who-knew-what-else beneath the dark water. Rain trickled off the rim of my hooded jacket, reducing my vision to a blurry green.

We started walking. In less than a minute, Elting found the first hazard, not a reptile, but an insect. "Brown wasps," he said, gingerly pointing to a nest under a leaf. Now here was something to fear, he said.

I gave the aggressive insects a wide berth but kept close to our guides. Soon I noticed a fallen tree that practically bristled with plant life. It supported a collection of air plants, called epiphytes, and resurrection ferns, which had sprung to life in the rain. They were crowded next to a riot of bromeliads, spiky relatives of the pineapple.

"There's an entire ecosystem on that stump," he said.

He splashed a path ahead of us, avoiding a tranquil area he thought might contain an alligator. "After a while you get to read sloughs and ditches the same way skiers read hills and moguls."

Then he pointed to the backside of a tree. When I caught up, I saw what looked like tubby shoelaces clutching the trunk of a pop ash tree. He saw something else.

"Epidendrum amphistomum," he announced, identifying a plant commonly called the dingy-flowered star orchid.

And so it went for the next hour: Elting and Mesce shouting out plant names in Latin in a stomping, splashing science classroom.

Meier, a former earth science teacher, was enthralled.

By now the sun had come out.

"Watch out for cottonmouths," said Mesce, mentioning a hazard, poisonous snakes, I hadn't considered.

We left the slough and returned to the dirt path. After walking for a few minutes, Mesce stopped in front of a relatively deep pool of water and swung a stick through the grass. (Only later did I hear him refer to this area as alligator alley. He'd been announcing our intrusion into their domain.)

This part of the swamp was more open to the sky. It was where the orchid thief of the book had harvested plants and where the alligator attack in the movie had been shot. The walking was easier, and I was lulled into complacency.

Then Mesce stopped — this wasn't an animal alert. It was a ghost sighting. Ahead grew the park's most famous plant.

The ghost orchid resembled a green spider gripping the tree. There was no bloom, but I didn't feel cheated.

On another tree, Elting showed us a clamshell orchid in bloom. We crowded around the 2-inch-long flower and studied its features. This graceful plant is endangered and faces an uncertain future.

For a moment, I forgot about the water, the muck and the reptiles. I understood why someone might walk through a swamp to see a flower in bloom.