A real treat every autumn is this appropriately named Cymbidium (it is very elegant). Cymbidium elegans is native to the Himalayas where we have seen it growing abundantly in forests above Gangtok (capital of Sikkim) as well as in North Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Unfortunately we have always visited the Himalayas in the spring (great […]

This wonderful flower belongs to Dracula bella. The first large heavily patterned flower has just opened with more buds to come. We have a number of Dracula species in the school collection but this is the plant with the largest and most dramatic flowers. The species is native to dense cloud forests in Colombia and […]

At Writhlington we grow 900 different orchid species and a small number of interesting primary hybrids. Coelogyne x intermedia (above)  is a natural hybrid between two of our favourite Coelogynes; Coelogyne cristata and Coelogyne flaccida (below). We have seen both species growing close together in Sikkim during our five school expeditions to this wonderful part […]

Another of our regular autumn orchids is this large flowered coelogyne with a magnificent hairy lip adapted for pollination by large bees. Coelogyne speciosum is native to Malaysia, Borneo, Java and Sumatra where it is reported from 700-2000m altitude. This variety (albicans) has more white on the lip and a light green flower colour than […]

We always have masdevallia species in flower and this week one of the most intriguing is this newly described species endemic to Ecuador. This species was first described in 2006 and is a small growing masdevallia with large long lasting flowers for the size of the plant (the leaves in the photos are just 4cm […]