This wonderfully fragrant orchid is filling the greenhouse with its delicious play-doh scent. We have several plants, spread around both our Warm Americas and Cool Americas sections, and although the flowers are not the largest or brightest, your nose tells you when you are close to a plant.

Prosthechea baccalus is found over a wide range through Central and South America and forms a large plant with 40 cm pseudobulbs topped by 40cm leaves. The flowers are almost always in pairs, back to back but we get threes on particularly strong growths.

Found from 400 to 1700m the plant is not fussy about temperature and we grow it well in both Warm Americas and Cool Americas keeping it damp all year. Growing the species in different temperatures extends the flowering season as the warmer growing plants flower first during May while the cooler growing plants wait until June.

This is another species currently being filmed by the BBC for Green Planet – if only smellovision was a thing!!