Today we hosted a visit from a group of educationalists and scientists from Malaysia, and students were able to share both their knowledge of orchids and their experiences of the orchid project.

The Malaysian delegation including Dr Ratna Roshida Ab Razak, Dr Tuan Noriati, and Tengku Auvaroza were keen to find out about the Orchid Project, the impact it has on students and how it is used both in the curriculum, as a vehicle for research, and as a conservation enterprise.

Student Chloe McGiveron who first met Tengku Auvaroza at the European Orchid Show in Paris explained, “We showed our visitors the laboratories and the greenhouse and explained about our work in Rwanda and at shows. They were really interested to learn about students individual stories and the way that the orchid project has helped us to develop skills and attitudes that help us to succeed.”

We expect the visit to be the start of a long and fruitful collaboration with our passionate new partners in Malaysia.

Unusually our orchid of the day is a species flowering in flask. This is Psygmorchis pusilla (previously called Oncidium pusilla) which is a large flowered miniature twig epiphyte from Central America. The plant here is 3cm high with a 2cm bright yellow flower.

This is a species we have seen growing in Guatemala and Belize in hot dryish lowland forest on thin branches and twigs. The photo below was taken in Guatemala where the plant was growing and flowering near Yaxha in the Mayan Biosphere Reserve.

All the plants we have seen in the wild have been small and in cultivation we find the species short lived but profusely flowering on short spikes that produce lots of flowers successively.

When we take plants out of flask we find that they do best mounted as they seem to resent compost around their roots. The natural habitat is most like out Warm Americas section with minimum 15C and bright light.

Flowering this species in flask shows how all a plants needs are met by the growing media we provide them in the laboratory. We are looking forward to teaching more people our laboratory techniques both next week at open evening and at the British orchid Show in November.

This is a first appearance in 365 days for one of the smaller growing of our prosthechea species.

This species is native to Brazil where it grows in the coastal forests of the Mata Atlantica. We have seen similar species in Brazil clothing the thick lower branches of trees and this species has a spreading habit with its little sprays of non-resupinate (upside down) flowers clear of the leaves for passing pollinators which would be butterflies.

We have tried the species in several sections of the greenhouse as we have found very little information about it and find that it prefers to grow warm and shaded with the free draining conditions provided by a basket.

We are delighted to have a range of dendrochilum species in our collection and one of the most attractive is this species from Java.

Plants grow in montane forests from 700-2000m and so should not be too fussy about temperature. We find the species does best in our Warm Asia section with a minimum of 17C where we keep plants shaded all year and well watered.

Next month our dendrochilums will dominate the Warm Asia section with our monster plants of Dendrochilum cobbianum and Dendrochilum magnum so this species flowering has caused lots of excitement amongst our young growers.

It is definitely Barbosella time in the Greenhouse  with lots of Barbosella australis in flower (see day 610) and now this lovely minature species coming into flower too. Barbosella dusenii is our orchid with the smallest leaves. The leaves are a few mm long and produced on a creeping rhizome with relatively gigantic flowers produced in a mass in late summer.

We grow the species mounted which it clearly enjoys and avoids the threat of the plant becoming smothered in moss.

The species is native to Brazil where it is found in cloud forests at around 1000m. We replicate these conditions in Cool Americas by hanging plants low down in the greenhouse and spraying daily with a minimum of 12C.