Common Growth Conditions & Species Information

• Light: Dappled or Partial Shade
• Temperature: 50-62˚F / 10-17˚C {night average}
• Bloom Season: Spring / Winter
• Flower Size: 2 1/4″ / 6 cm
• Fragrant: No

On our first day we went for a hike on one of the trails located on the south east part of the island. The trail leads to a beach called Lagoinha do Leste (Little Lake of the East). The ascent is through what is locally called the mata atlantica, or Atlantic rain forest. The forest is dense on both sides of the trail, as well as overhead, and the air is cool and humid. When we came up over the mountain, and out of the jungle cover, the forest gives way to a brush covered coastal mountain side. On our descent we spotted a couple of lovely Epidendrum fulgens’.

Common Growth Conditions & Species Information

• Light: Bright or Full Light
• Temperature: 65-85˚F / 20-30˚C {night average}
• Bloom Season: Fall
• Flower Size: 1″ / 2.5 cm
• Fragrant: No

Epidendrum fulgens grows in the restinga vegetation near the Atlantic shore from Rio de Janeiro in the north to Rio Grande do Sul in the south, at a typical elevation of 10 meters, and as little as 20 yards from the oceans edge. They are a warm to hot growing terrestrial orchid that blooms in the fall in Brazil.

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Lagoinha do Leste
There are two entrances to Lagoinha do Leste. The trail I mention above is accesed through Pântano do Sul, is about 2,5 km (1.5 miles) long and takes about 90 minutes one way. The elevation rises from sea level to 200 meters (656 feet) almost halfway, and then back to sea level. This trail is used more by the local fishermen and surfers. There is alternate access to Lagoinha through Matadeiro beach. This trail is about 4,3 km (2.5 miles), elevation rises to around 100 meters (330 feet), and takes roughly 5 hours round trip.

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View Lagoinha do Leste in a larger map

I previously posted about my Restrepia but I’m so enamored with this little plant that I just have to make another post!

Common Growth Conditions & Species Information

• Light: Dappled or Partial Shade
• Temperature: 50-62˚F / 10-17˚C {night average}
• Bloom Season: Spring / Winter
• Flower Size: 2 1/4″ / 6 cm
• Fragrant: No

Restrepia striata naturally occurs in Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia in wet montane forests at elevations of 1180 to 3200 meters. It is a miniature sized, cool to cold growing epiphyte with erect ramicauls enveloped completely by several inflated sheaths and carrying a single, apical, broadly elliptical leaf that blooms on a terminal, erect, threadlike, to 5″ {12 cm} long, single flowered inflorescence.

Common Growth Conditions & Species Information

• Light: Dappled or Partial Shade
• Temperature: 68-85˚F / 20-29˚C {night average}
• Bloom Season: Summer / Fall
• Flower Size: 1/4″ / 1 cm
• Fragrant: Yes

Ornithophora radicans is found in southeastern and southern Brazil near the coast at elevations around 400 meters. It is a miniature sized, warm to hot growing epiphyte with thin, narrow, oblong-ligulate, compressed, ancipitous pseudobulbs subtended basally by several, distichous, leaf-bearing sheaths and carrying two apical, grasslike, cuneate, linear-ligulate, acute, membraneous leaves {a lot of science right?}. Tiny fragrant flowers bloom in summer and fall on an arching, slender, 7″ {18 cm} long, several flowered inflorescence.

Best grown on a slab of tree fern in warm to cool temperatures, moderate shade and kept moist year round except for a short dry rest after the pseudobulb has matured.

Common Growth Conditions & Species Information

• Light: Partial Shade
• Temperature: 65-75˚F / 18-24˚C {night average}
• Bloom Season: Spring / Summer / Fall
• Flower Size: 1/4″ / 1 cm
• Fragrant: no
• Synonyms: Pleurothallis purpureoviolacea

Acianthera purpureoviolacea was originally found growing in low light as an epiphyte in the humid forests of the coastal mountains of São Paulo state in Brazil from sea level to 600 meters.

Taxonomy Note: In 2002, with the help of molecular analysis, this species was reclassified into the smaller and more homogeneous genera Pleurothallidinae. Today this species is classified in the genus Acianthera, however, Carlyle Luer, an expert in this group of species, prefers to further divide and classify it in a smaller group of about fifteen species called Arthrosis. This small group is easily distinguished from the other Acianthera by their sheer flowers with the lip always elongated and sharp, with characteristic lateral lobes and the presence of a circular joint on its base, which fits neatly in a depression in the column. The genus name suggested by Luer is a reference to this joint. Virtually all species have the same lip.

Via: Colibri Orquídeas