It is hard to know when to post this pretty species from tropical Africa as the flowers are produced successively over a very long period but they are probably at their best today. This is a small flowered African species and we have seen it growing in Nyungwe National Park Rwanda on our five expeditions […]

This very stately Oncidium is a terrestrial species found in Peru and Ecuador where it grows on steep banks from 2400 to 2800m altitude in cool forest. Like many of the terrestrial oncidiums it has long upright flower spikes to present the flowers above surrounding vegetation and the flowers are clustered near the top of the […]

  In contrast to yesterday’s large flowered cattleya we have one of our smallest flowered orchids today. This tiny flowered species which is endemic to North Eastern Colombia arrived in the school greenhouses as a ‘weed’ on Pleurothallis sclerophylla and has since expanded into a ball and produced many offspring. The 2mm deep red flowers […]

This is a medium sized plant with flowers 12cm across that are very large for the plant. This lovely orchid is native to the Mata Atlantica coastal forests of eastern Brazil. It is found at around 800m, in habitat we have visited, where it grows as a lithophyte or epiphyte in seasonally dry forest that […]

Our third cloud forests miniature of the week is Pleurothallis picta. The species is widely distributed across South and Central America. The 2mm wide flowers are relatively large for the plant and sprays of up to six flowers all open together. Plants flower on and off throughout the year. The plant grows in wet montane […]