A yellow Epidendrum ciliare and an apparently fearsome night visitor

In January, I was in St. Croix and had the opportunity to see the wonderful orchid collection of Edna Hamilton, the President of the St. Croix Orchid society.  There I saw several plants of Epidendrum ciliare.  One of the plants has the peculiarity that its petals and sepals are not green as they are in the typical Epi. ciliare plant.  In this flower, which originated in Vieques, the floral segments are yellow.   At night these flowers are wonderfully fragrant.  It was nighttime when, as I was talking with Edna, I noticed a flash of bright red color moving among the flowers of this orchid.   Initially it appeared like a tarantula wasp was in the flower.  Edna was less than enthused with the insect, and with good reason, tarantula wasps can deliver one of the most painful stings in the insect world, only the bullet ant can deliver worse.  It has been described as "inmediate, excruciating pain that simply shuts down one's ability do to anything, except perhaps, scream.  Mental discipline simply does not work in these situations," - Justin Schmidt (see Schmidt pain Index).  But as I looked closely at the insect I realized that the "tarantula wasp" was in fact a moth. The mimicry was pretty good but the body proportions of the insect revealed that it was a deception.  The moth moved over the flower for a few moments and then left.

Bulbophyllum lepidum

This is the hardiest of all my Bulbophyllum.  I have had it for many years and it has survived both overwatering and utter neglect.   It helps that the local climatic conditions in the mountains where I live are favorable for its growth, but it also has survived well in the coast where it is much hotter and drier.   This plant blooms from me between October and December. It produces flowers arranged in a half daisy pattern.  The inflorescence is wiry and it is easy to miss until it starts developing the flowers.  A single pseudobulb can produce several inflorescences if it is healthy and large.  This is one well behaved plant which will produce growths that closely follow the contours of its post.  I don’t culture this one on pots because it keeps outgrowing them in a relatively short time.  I had two plants, one in a fern post and another growing in the outside of a wire basked shaped like a cylinder.  Both have done very well, unfortunately the fern post eventually rotted away and the plants had to be transplanted elsewhere.  The plants were in the fern post for eight years and covered it completely.  The wire basket is full of bark, however as the bark decays it gets washed away during watering.  To replace the decayed bark I add fresh pieces through the top opening of the basket.  This sometimes attracts small flies and it is quite amusing to see them wall around on top of the flower and occasionally trip on the lip.  I have seen flies with pollinia of this species on the back and from time to time a seed capsule starts to develop.

Media:  It seems indifferent to the type of media as long as it gets watered and fertilized according to its needs.  I have had it in tree fern and bark.

Potting:  I cultivate them in a fern post and in a wire basket.  I initially had it in small pots proportionate to the size of the plant but it kept outgrowing them in a relatively short time.   Fern post eventually decay, but they can accommodate the growth of the plants for many more years than a pot.

Watering:   During the summer this plant gets rain every single day in the afternoon, the media stays constantly wet for months.  During the dry season, if it is not growing it gets a soaking once a week or a bit more frequently if the bulbs start to become furrowed.  Although this species, likes many other Bulbophyllum, likes frequent watering, this plant has shown itself to be hardier than the others in regard to tolerance to less than ideal watering schedules and has survived neglect in the coastal lowlands.  However the effect of neglect is that you get small pseudobulbs that bloom rarely if at all.

Humidity: The local weather provides the right amount of humidity for this plant most of the year.  Humidity locally fluctuates between 70% and 90% during the day.  At the height of the dry season humidity might go down to 50% for a few hours a day but climbs over 70% at night.  At the height of the wet season it can stay close to 100% during the night.  During its growing season the higher the environmental humidity the better, after it finishes its growing phase it can tolerate less humid conditions with no ill effects such as leaf loss.

Fertilizing: A fertilizer with high nitrogen content is used two times a week when this plant is producing new growths.  I stop fertilizing when the new growths achieve mature size.  I don’t’ fertilize if the plant is not producing either new growths or roots.

Light: It gets bright light, it is with my Cattleya, it gets full sun early in the morning and the rest of the day it is under the shade of trees.  It is not in deep shade.  This plant blooms better with high light but can still bloom quite satisfactorily with the level of light given Phalaenopsis.

Temperature: From 95 F high day to 75 F at night during the summer, 80F to 60F during the night in winter.

Care: Under my conditions, this plant thrives with routine care.

Pests:  So far no insect pests have bothered this plant.  But this plant has lost leaves and pseudobulbs from rot during the rainy season when they became accidentally damaged.

The Bulbophyllum lepidum flowers: Like porn for flies.

Incoming!

My Bulbophyllum lepidum showing several inflorescences

Those flowers look... Hmmm... so alluring and soft and nice smelling

Hey you!  Are you talking to me!

Do you come here often?

Can I buy you a drink?

Your place of mine?  Hey, hey, stop!, stop! !@$%#@$%##^%^%$&$!!!!!!!

 Bulbophylum lepidum is a small orchid that produces inflorescences that resemble half a daisy.  It comes as somewhat of a surprise that a plant in the orchid group will try to resemble a plant in the Compositaceae, the group that includes daisies.  But it all has to do with the need to attract pollinators.  It seems that in this orchid original haunts the local pollinators are strongly attracted to daisies.  Each petal of the “daisy” is an individual orchid flower.  To make things even more interesting the lip of the flowers is hinged and carefully balanced.  If a fly steps on to it, the lip suddenly bends downwards against the column of the flower putting the fly in contact with the adhesive parts at the base of the pollinia.  I have seen unwary flies tumble head first into the flowers of Bulb. lepidum and their reaction never fails to amuse me.

The flowers seem to be mighty attractive to certain small flies.  I have tried to detect what could be so alluring for the flies but so far I have not been able to perceive any fragrance or objectionable smell.  I have to add that the flowers are apparently not attractive all the time, I have only seen activity on them in middle morning.   Whatever attractant the orchid uses to seduce the flies, it is impressively effective.  The flies seem mesmerized by the flowers and become reluctant to fly away from the area.  The fact that my garden is packed with a plethora of reptile, amphibian and arachnid predators that view these insects as flying sandwiches, make this detail even more amazing.   The flies give the impression that they are observing the flowers with the intensity and attentiveness that humans usually reserve to porn, boxing events and lottery drawings.   This disregard for the proximity of potential danger, in which the flies throw caution to the wind, has allowed me to take surprisingly close photos of the flies with my point and shoot camera.  But let’s explain what happens when a fly gets land of a flower.

The flies land on the lip of the flower and then proceed to orient themselves over the long axis of the flower.  Then they slowly move closer to the base of the flower and to the lip.  This may take some time and may be preceded by several flights around the flower as the fly react to alarming stimuli or to other flies buzzing nearby.  Eventually some of the flies step into the lip and are flipped against the column. 

The sudden flip into the column is a startling and frightening event for the flies and you can hear them buzzing loudly and wagging their legs violently.  With only one exception all the flies that have gone through this ordeal have extricated themselves from the flower quickly and flown away with great alacrity so that I have lost them from sight.  On the single case I was able to make observations after the fly had fallen into the flower, I could see the yellow pollinia in the back of the fly.  The fly with the pollinia stood still for a while and then flew away, apparently none the worse for having the pollinia on its back.

Of all my Bulbophyllum this species is the most hardy and undemanding.  It has been growing in the same tree fern pole for the last six years and has covered most of it.  It blooms faithfully for several months every year.  Because it has many pseudobulbs that bloom following their own particular time table the plant has flowers intermittently over a period of months instead of a single flush of many inflorescences at the same time. Each inflorescence last only a few days, they last even less time if they are damaged by strong rain.

My plant is fertilized with 20-20-20 at the rate of one teaspoon per gallon every week during the growing season.  I don’t fertilize if the plant is not producing new growth.

It is grown in what is called “Cattleya light” conditions, which is stronger than for most of my other Bulbophyllums which like more shade, but suits this species fine.  My plant grows better under brighter light and blooms more often.  It gets watered every day when the weather is hot to avoid dehydration.  The rest of the year it can grow fine watered two times a week, but remember I live in a tropical country with a high degree of environmental humidity.

Temperatures locally fluctuate during the year from 65F at night in winter to 95 during the day in the height of the summer.  There is a 10F difference in temperature between the day’s high and low temperatures.