This is one of our most spectacular Coelogyne species with multi-flowered spikes up to 1m long and large flowers. The flowers are really spectacular and the species is very well named as the bearded Coelogyne. Our clone is a particularly large growing one – a really special orchid.

The dark brown ‘beard’ on the lip is probably an evolutionary adaption to limit access to just one species of bee to increase the chances of successful cross pollination.

The species is native to wet evergreen monsoon forest from Nepal to Southern China. We haven’t seen this species in Sikkim but we have visited the habitat (1000-1800m) where coelogynes are abundant and we replicate it in our Cool Asia section where plants are kept cool (min 10C) and really wet during the summer. We keep plants watered in winter too as the species produces its new growths as the flowers open from the old growths.

As you can see from the photograph above, we have several plants of this lovely species flowering and these will be for sale at shows and open days over the next twelve months – unfortunately they are too large to post.