At Writhlington school we always feel that spring has arrived when our plants of Coelogyne cristata start to flower. Matt isn’t the tallest member of greenhouse club but he still shows the scale of this magnificent plant. Coelogyne cristata featured as one of our favourite orchids in an earlier blog and I am sure you can see why. Its flowers are a beautiful crystal white ..rather reminicent of the snow we have all had enough of this year.

Coelogyne cristata is a species our expedition to Sikkim had the great pleasure of finding in the wildin April 2009 growing at 1200m in mossy forest near Tinkitam. This Writhlington plant is really heavy. We aren’t quite sure how we will carry it to the new greenhouse next month but are confident we will think of something.

This is the same species flowering in the Himalayas above excited students Luke B and Luke S.