It is lovely to hear from people who have purchased plants from us, and this week we have heard from two growers, who like us, have this lovely miniature species flowering over Christmas.

The delicate little flowers of Mediocalcar decoratum are very unlike any other species we grow and it is always lovely when the little orange buds burst each winter. It is a species that several students grow successfully at home.

The species comes from Papua New Guinea where it grows in shady forest up to 2500m. Mediocalcar decoratum’s small bell shaped flowers in orange and yellow suggest that the likely pollinator is Sun Birds. Sun Bird’s are Africa and Asia’s version of South America’s Humming Birds and we saw some lovely species in Rwanda.

Although this is a cool growing Asian species its habitat in Papua New Guinea is very similar to the cloud forests of the Americas as so we grow plants in our Cool Americas section.

We grow all our plants mounted which suits the plants habit and plants flourish as long as protected from strong sun in the summer which dries plants too much.