We are now well into the flowering season for Autumn Cymbidium species.

Earlier in the month we had Cymbidium elegans (below) and today we have Cymbidium erythraeum, two species that share the same habitat in Sikkim, and we have seen both species on the same large evergreen trees  at around 2000m altitude around Gangtok and in Southern Sikkim near Tinkitam.

Cymbidium erythraeum is a lovely orchid when not in flower due to its long thin dark green leaves. The flower spikes emerge in the autumn and the long lasting flowers are a treat throughout the winter. The spikes are generally arching or pendulous and we have two distinct clones. The species shown is our smaller growing, and early flowering, clone with much shorter and more pendulous spikes. The larger growing clone (below) will be in flower in a couple of weeks.

We grow this species with other cymbidiums in a winter minimum of 6C and vents that open at 12C so it grows really cool. We keep it very wet in summer with plant food in most waterings. In the winter we keep it damp and never let it completely dry out. The evergreen forests we have seen the species in have large amounts of moss and abundant epiphytes indicating a very wet climate.

We have this and several other cymbidium species in flask and will have seedlings for sale soon.