This species smells strongly of chocolate and so is very popular at school. When grown well it produces several spikes of long lasting flowers from each pseudobulb and so a great little display. It also flowers when quite a small seedling and so is a rewarding plant to grow from seed.

The species is native to Central America where it grows in humid forests up to 1500m altitude and though it seems not to be fussy about temperatures it does best for us in our Cool Americas Section. This plant is mounted on an old piece of Elder but it does well for us mounted or in pots.

There is considerable variation in flower colour from deep to very light pink and we rather like this deep pink clone and will be raising seed from it again this year.

This species has been used in breeding hybrids which also have the delicious chocolate scent.