Today we have another small flowered orchid. The delicate little flowers of Mediocalcar decoratum are very unlike any other species we grow and it is always lovely when the little orange buds burst each winter.

The species comes from Papua New Guinea where it grows in shady forest up to 2500m. Mediocalcar decoratum’s small bell shaped flowers in orange and yellow suggest that it is probably pollinated by Sun Birds. Sun Bird’s are Africa and Asia’s version of South America’s Humming Birds and we saw some lovely species in Rwanda.

Although this is a cool growing Asian species its habitat in the mountains of Papua New Guinea is very similar to the cloud forests of the Americas and so we grow plants in our Cool Americas section.

We grow all our plants of Mediocalcar decoratum mounted which suits their habit and plants flourish as long as they are protected from strong sun in the summer which can dry plants too much.