We ventured down to the Dorset Coast today for a socially distanced walk in some our favourite wild flower habitat on Portland. Sightings included this lovely Pyramidal orchid (anacamptis pyramidalis) with the first few flowers open and the classic pyramid flower spike shape. This beautiful saprophyte (a parasitic plant with no chlorophyll that feeds on […]

Our masdevallia rolfeana plants are looking a real picture this week. The majority of Masdevallias produce single flowers like Masdevallia rolfeana but, as you can see, a mature plant produces masses of flowers. Masdevallia rolfeana is native to Central America and we have seen it in Costa Rica growing on the trunks and lower branches […]

As regulars will know we are keen to represent the wonderful diversity of the genus stelis. This is inspired by our first experience of thge genus in the wild in Brazilian cloud forest in our first school expedition in 2000. We know have more than 20 Stelis species – if you want to know which […]

We can tell that summer is definitely here – Renathera imshootiana is flowering again high in the roof of our Warm Americas section. This extraordinary red flowered orchid is one of our tallest specimens at over 2m tall and it is a real pleasure to take it down from the roof of Warm Asia to […]

It seems sad that there are now students in to enjoy the a face to face with our Monkey Faced Dracula – but at least I can share it on the internet 🙂 and as the species has the wonderful habit of flowering several times on a flower spike and so it will still be […]