A great way to start the new school year is with this wonderful miniature orchid species – though this plant has been on its cork mount for about ten years has turned into a ‘giant’ miniature orchid!!!

Though these other plants in flower show that it also flowers as a tiny plant.

Barbosella australis has 5mm leaves along a creeping rhizome and relatively large flowers single produced in profusion. Barbosella australis is native to Southern Brazil (australis means ‘southern’ and doesn’t refer to Australia – the southern land) and we have seen related species in Brazil at around 1200m in primary forest where a colony can clothe the lower branches of a tree. The species produces a profusion of flowers from both new and older leaves.

This species propagates relatively easily and so we have lots of these stunning plants flowering this week – look out for some of them this autumn.

We find that the only way we can grow this species well is mounted on bark where it can grow where it wants and eventually surround the cork mount as our plant has here. We spray our plants once a day. In pots, plants become overwhelmed by moss.