Cranichis tenuis Reichenbach f. 1865, on a decade old landslide in Maricao

I have always found the Maricao Forest a very interesting place to visit.  I have visited it for decades now.  Close to the year 2000, I found a truly huge patch of Prosthechea pygmea.  Unusually for the species many of the flowers were wide open.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera with me at the time so I made a resolution to return to photograph the species.  Sadly when I returned a rockslide had happened and all the plants were buried under meters of rock.  The thriving community of plants was replaced by an utterly lifeless expanse of serpentine rock.

With the hope that the Prosthechea would eventually come back, I have kept visiting the place.  The first few years there was little to see aside from algae and lichens.  Then a few grasses and bromeliads appeared.  Now after more than ten years a small community of plants have taken hold on the rockslide surviving on a meagre layer of leaf litter.

The first orchid that appeared was Epidendrum ackermanii, you could find stunted plants of the species growing in a few places.  But the plants were small and their leaves bright red from the fierce sunlight.  I also found Eltroplectis calcarata, usually at the edges of the rockslide on bushes that survived the rockfall by a hair.

In my last visited I explored the whole length of the rockslide and again failed to find Prosth. pygmea, however I spied some tiny white flowered plants growing between the stones.  To my delight, I realized that I had found an orchid plant that I had never seen before.   It turned out to be Cranichis tenuis.    I had seen photos of this plant in the Maricao forest in 2012, in Flickr, taken by Lucas Limonta so it was fairly easy to identify them.  There were only few plants in the patch I found.

The rockslide is not a pleasant spot to be and the complete lack of trash makes it clear that very few people ever go by that area so I think the plants are fairly safe from collection.   Also the plants are inconspicuous and very easy to miss among the rocks and other small herbs, In fact I would have missed them completely if I had not been specifically searching for an orchid that is itself small statured.

This plant is a Greater Antilles endemic, it is found in Cuba, Hispaniola and Puerto Rico (Ackerman et al.).  The plant is classified as rare.  It grows on limestone and serpentine soils at heights 650 and 800 mts.

Ackerman, James. D. et al. 2014. Orchid Flora of the Greater Antilles. Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden Volume 109.

Dendrobium Burana Sunshine x Dendrobium discolor

The influence of Dendrobium discolor is unmistakable in this hybrid.  Unlike Den. discolor, this plant blooms in a relatively small plant.  I love the color and the ease of culture of this orchid.  I grow it outside, under saran shade cloth.  The local climate is hot, not warm, and during the dry season the plants experience much drier conditions than normal.  However this plant takes it all in stride and grows well without any special care.  It is in a terracota pot with very clean and hard bark.  It has been my experience that these orchids resent mightly any kind of media that stays soggy for a long time, this usually results in the loss of roots.

Epilaelia Snow Fantasy x Encyclia alata, the 2014 blooming

This is this plant second blooming in my garden.  The plant still have some way to go before it reaches full adult size.  The Epilaelia Snow Fantasy is a large plant. The Encyclia parent can vary in size, I have seen both small and some impressively sized plants and I had one that would produce up to a hundred flowers in a single inflorescence.  I expect this plant inflorescences to increase in size until the plant has three or four full size pseudobulbs in a row.  It is not clear to me how large the pseudobulbs of this orchid will eventually get.   The best thing about this plant is that the climate in my garden is very well suited to its seasonal growth pattern.

Stanhopea wardii Lodd. ex Lindley 1838, first blooming in my collection

I brought this plant a few years ago from Tropical Orchid Farm.  I potted it in a basket with bark.  As most people that knows this genus would have realized, bark is not a recommended media for this species, due to its pendent inflorescence, which can become trapped in dense media.  But I judged that my plant was small enough that it would take some time to read adults size and by that time the pseudobulbs would have reached the edge of the basket and the media would no longer be an impediment to any developing roots.

I gave the plant generous watering, constant fertilizing and it thrived.  Last year the new growths reached the edge of the six inch basket, growths after that had their bases exposed rather than being sitting on top of the media.  A few months ago the latest growths showed two inflorescences, one at each opposite end of the basket.

The flowers are beautiful and have a good size.   In fact the inflorescence is impressively massive considering the size of the pseudobulbs from which it develops.  The flowers opened well but one collapsed quickly, probably due to the stress of being moved from the mountains to the hot coastal lowlands.  The plant started blooming on Friday  24 of 2014, and I feared that because I was going away for the weekend, when I returned they all might have collapsed, so I took it with me, so that I could photograph the flowers when they were freshly opened.

This plant has not represented for me a cultural challenge.  The only special thing I have made for this plant is a custom made basket I made ao I could fulfill the cultural needs of the plant without using a lot of potting media.  The plant is healthy, however it lost many leaves during this year, maybe due to unseasonably dry weather in my locality at a date where it normally rains constantly,

Sobralia decora Bateman 1841, blooming in 2014

This is the second year this Sobralia blooms in my garden.  The plant has been growing well in the warm and humid environment of the Rio Abajo Forest in Arecibo, Puerto Rico.   Although I would not call it a fast grower, it has more than doubled in size since I brought it two years ago.  This plant needs regular watering and fertilizing to produce the full sized canes that bloom best.  The bigger the canes the better the flowering.  I particularly like the fact that all the flowers opened simultanously.  Sadly the flowers are short lived and collapse in the afternoon.  

Bulbophyllum Elisabeth Ann a pale clone

Bulbophyllum Elisabeth Ann is the cross of Bulb. rothschidianum x Bulb. longissimum.  Different clones can vary in the way that they resemble their parents.  Most people prefer those clones that show the rich red color of the rothschildianum parent.  I have several clones I brought some time ago, this is the most pale of the lot.  Unfortunately the yellow color is not bright and it is noticeable only when one looks at the plant closely, the pink color tends to overshadow it.