It is a Pigeon Orchid day here in the greenhouse. Lovely white flowers with a yellow blotch on the lip – but only for one day.

Dendrubium crumenatum (or the pidgeon orchid) is a well known and interesting orchid from South East Asia and a very common city tree in Kuching, Sarawak.

Our plant is now mature with pseudobulbs/flower spikes reaching out over a metre from the basket. It is well documented that plants flower a while after a period of heavy rain, and the flowers that open together just last a day. As a result it is always a lovely surprise when we find our plant covered in flowers, and we make the most of it while we can. The plant makes up for its short lived flowers by flowering several times every year.

We grow the plant high in our warm asia section so that it gets as warm an environment as we can manage. Remember not to cut of flower spikes as they re-flower for several years. We get a flowering every few months.

Masdevallia paiveana is a lovely species native to Peru and Bolivia where it is found as an epiphyte in cool wet woodland around 2500m altitude. The flowers are produced throughout the year and very pretty with pink hairs on white sepals.

We have two distinct clones of the species. This clone (above) forms a neat little plant with 7cm leaves and attractive flowers produced on and off throughout the year. The second clone is even more hairy but with otherwise identical flowers (below) but is a much more vigorous plant with larger leaves.

Plants have a scrambling habit and as a strong grower and soon forms a large plant.

We find that the first clone does well in a small pot or a basket, where as the second clone does much better in a basket to suit its scrambling habit.

We haven’t featured this wonderful little masdevallia species since 2019 which seems very remiss of us.

Masdevallia ludibundella is a miniature masdevallia with large dramatic flowers. The species comes from Colombia and enjoys the cool wet conditions that most of our masdevallias enjoy in the Cool Americas section of the greenhouse.

The flowers are long lasting and held well clear of the leaves. Given conditions it likes the plant multiplies but is quite slow to make specimen plants.

We grow the species mounted and in pots. As long as it is kept well watered it doesn’t seem to worry.

 

Prosthechea prismatocarpa is a large growing member of the cattleya family. The species produces long spikes of dramatic flowers that are butterfly pollinated with the pink section of the lip the perfect shape for a large butterfly to grab hold of.

We have seen Prosthechea prismatocarpa growing in Costa Rica where we found it in tall remnant trees on cloudy ridges at around 1500m. The trees had Masdevallia rolfeana growing on their trunks and, not surprisingly, we find that the two species do well close to each other in our Cool Americas section but with Prosthechea prismatocarpa growing a little brighter and dryer as it grows higher in the Coata Rican trees.

We have two varieties of the species; the clone above is Prosthechea prismatocarpa ‘Writhglington’ which has larger  ‘tall’ flowers, longer spikes and darker markings than the more usual variety below with slightly smaller, ‘wide’ flowers and a more spreading habit.

Here are the two flowers next to each other for comparison with “Writhlington’ on the right. Both clones are now in full flower.

We have some lovely small growing African orchids including this floriferous species.

Podangis dactylocras, a small fan shaped species widespread across tropical Africa from Angola in the south to Sierra Leone in the West and Tanzania in the East.

The moth pollinated flowers are white (a common character in African orchids) and produced on short spikes from the axils of the pointed leaves. Flowers are 6mm across and have a 1cm spur with an unusual flattened tip that reminds us of a fish’s tail.

Plants enjoy a warm shaded spot and respond by producing multiple growths that in time will give a mass of flowers.