Our second Masdevallia of the week is Masdevallia picea. This species is loved by the orchid project students for its foul smell. Masdevallia picea is native to cloud forests in Peru at around 2700m altitude where its large deep red flowers attract fly pollinators assisted by the scent of rotting stuff – it reminds me […]

We have some interesting Masdevallias flowering this week including the very spectacular Masdevallia veitchiana. We have several clones of this lovely species and they can enthral us with their vibrant flowers at any time of year, we have featured it in the Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer – what an orchid. The flowers look orange […]

This species has the smallest flowers of any of our 1000 species although they are very spectacular when you get close with a magnifying glass. This is an amazing orchid with a brilliant name reflecting the flowers looking like tiny little orange people (anthropophora means person like) . The flowers are just 2mm from top […]

Our Autumn flowering Barkerias are coming into flower and promising glorious spikes of large flowers. Barkeria is a dramatic genus from Central America and at school we have four species and all of them have large spectacular flowers as well as interesting growth habits with masses of roots. Barkeria lindleyana is found in from Mexico […]

Bulbophyllum is a very diverse genus and we are fortunate to have a large number of species including Bulbophyllum coomberi which is one of our smaller growing and flowering species. Plants have small bulbs (5mm across) each with a single leaf, that grow on a scrambling or dangling rhizome. The flowers are produced in some […]