Our wonderful and heavily awarded Barbosella handroi specimen is once again in full flower (above) – as are our smaller plants (below)

This tiny orchid – the leaves are just 1cm long  – produces the most extraordinary display every autumn, with flowers from old and new leaves that almost hide the plant.

Barbosella handroi is native to cloud forest in Brazil and we have seen the species clothing the upper branches of tall trees in primary Brazilian cloud forest at Macae de Cima in our trips there in 2000 and 2006. The forest here was damp and shaded and cool at 1200m altitude. Even in the dry season (we visited in October and again in March at the end and the start of the dry season) with little rain, the forest was dripping from mists and dew every morning.

We grow the species cool and well watered but hung up so that it dries out again relatively quickly. We weed out the moss that grows in amongst it quite regularly as moss would out compete the plant given a chance.

Our plants are all from one flask of seedlings and we have a couple of distinct clones with either brown or yellow flowers.