Another very frosty morning outside today and the heating is working hard to keep the orchids of the warm sections happy in the greenhouse. However, our Cool Americas section doesn’t need a lot of heating with its minimum of 12C and plants here are in their main growing phase safe from the excessive heat of the summer sun. We have lots of these cool growing species in flower this week including some great Masdevalllia species.

Masdevallia discolor is a small growing species from Colombian cloud forests between 2400 and 2800m altitude. Leaves are 5cm long and the flowers are large in comparison. We find that flowers are produced sporadically throughout the year. In common with a number of masdevallias the dark orange colour on the flower is from dark hairs on the yellow sepals making the flowers well worth a close inspection with a magnifying glass.

We grow the species in a basket in a shaded spot and keep it well watered all year.