Last week we featured Micropera obtusa and mentioned this species which is now in full flower.

Micropera rostrata is native to Assam and the Eastern Himalayas where it grows pendulously in warm forest that has very wet summers and a dryer winter.

We find that in cultivation the species enjoys constantly warm conditions in Warm Asia and we keep it watered throughout the year as the species never really stops growing. Summer flowering is very reliable indicating daylight length is the flowering trigger.

The species was originally included in Aerides which makes sense from the way that it grows and flowers but the flowers them selves have a very unusual and distinctive lip and column leading to the very appropriate name rostrata which means ‘beaked’. If you look closely at the flower it appears to have a comical face with two eyes and a long nose (this is the column).