We have made it – 365 different orchid species, one a day, blogged when in flower in our collection. During the year we have had over 33,000 visits to our website as well as our followers on Twitter and Facebook so we do hope that you have enjoyed the journey as much as we have at school.

Please let us know what you have enjoyed and any requests for next year. We have already had lots of people asking us to continue and we will be carrying on in 2018 with an orchid a day although some of them will be species that featured in 2017.

365 days has been great for the orchid project as we now have a really good data base of our orchids, we have students that have developed research skills, photographic skills and a whole lot of knowledge – a book maybe? It was also lovely at Orchid Christmas that our visitors could ask if we had any plants of …. available that they had seen on the blog, it is always worth asking.

So back to Brassia verrucosa. This species is commonly known as the spider orchid and has the most wonderful long spidery petals. It also has a relationship with a white spider in the wild. The spider hides camouflaged on the lip and catches insects attracted to the flower.

The plant is native to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, as well as Venezuela and grows as an epiphyte in seasonally wet forest from 900 to 2400m. For us the species does best in Warm Americas where it is hung up for good light but is kept really wet during the summer growing season to build up the massive pseudobulbs that deliver the long arching sprays of flowers. Our plant this year has five spikes and as you can see rather dwarfs Naiya and Ed when they pick it up.

The name refers to the verrucose or warty lip with rather intriguing green warts on the creamy white ground.