Trisetella triglochin

Trisetella triglochin, also found under the name Trisetella huebneri, is found both in southern Central America and northern South America.  It is extremely variable in flower shape and color.  This plant is only 3 cm tall with flowers that are also 3 cm in size and are produced on very thin 5 cm spikes that produce several flowers in succession.  I am not certain, however, that is correctly identified, since most of the Trisetellas I've purchased have had the wrong name.

Restrepia sanguinea 'Walter'

This plant was awarded by the American Orchid Society as Restrepia sanguinea but I've been told it's actually Restrepia guttulata.  If it is the latter species it is from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.  The plant is about 10 cm tall and the flowers are 5 cm from tip to tip.  My plant is grown in a plastic net pot in sphagnum moss and is very easy to grow.

Masdevallia caudata

Masdevallia caudata is one of the most desirable of all the Masdevallia species.  It has huge flowers, in this case 16 cm from the tips of the tails, and on a plant that is only 8 cm tall.  It has a very strong but rather unpleasant scent and blooms in the spring.  It comes from Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.  My plant is grown in sphagnum moss in a plastic net pot and watered nearly every day.

Maxillaria sophronitis

Also known as Ornithidium sophronitis, this small creeping plant is known for its brightly colored red-orange flowers.  The tiny growth, each with a little pseudobulb, sheathing leaves and a single leaf at the top of the pseudobulb, is less than 5 cm and the single flowers are only 1.5 cm.  The species is from Colombia and Venezuela and requires cool temperatures and high light.  Even then I find it hard to get it to bloom with more than a few flowers at a time.

Trisetella triglochin

This is one of the more common Trisetella species, if it is identified correctly.  I've found that most of the plants in this genus I purchase are misidentified.  Trisetella triglochin, also found under the name Trisetella huebneri is found both in southern Central America and northern South America.  It is extremely variable in flower shape and color.  This plant is only 3 cm tall with flowers that are also 3 cm in size and are produced on very thin 5 cm spikes that produce several flowers in succession.

Maxillaria sophronitis

Maxillaria or Ornithidium sophronitis is a small rambling plant with brightly colored flowers.  The little pseudobulbs are 2cm, the growths 6cm and the flowers 1.5cm.  The plant is native to Venezuela and Colombia and prefers cool temperatures.  It can be grown on a mount or in a pot and is easy to grow but sometimes reluctant to bloom.  Usually, however, higher light will induce blooming.

Barbosella cucullata

I've posted this species before, but last time it bloomed it had only two flowers.  It did much better this fall.  The species has thick, channeled leaves 5 cm long and 4 cm flowers on 15 cm spikes.  It is from Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela and is related to Masdevallia and Pleurothallis.  I grow it in live sphagnum and try to keep it slightly dry which it seems to prefer.  I've found, too, that the flowers are not very long-lasting.

Masdevallia caudata

Masdevallia caudata is amazing.  The plant is only 8cm but the flowers are 16cm from tip to tip and can be even larger.  Their coloring is also unique and beautiful and very difficult to describe, but the pictures certainly show what I mean.  The name refers to the very long "tails" of the flower, the caudae.  They are 7-8cm long.  The plant is native to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.  The flowers have a rather strong scent as well, which I find difficult to place but also quite unpleasant.  Someone described the scent as that of artificially flavored raspberry drink, but that does not describe the scent to me.

Lepanthopsis astrophora 'Stalky'

This species is grown by everyone who is interested in miniature orchids and by many who don't ordinarily show much interest in miniatures.  It is popular for its easy culture - it grows like a weed - and for the clouds of tiny purple flowers it produces in the spring, though it will continue to produce flower spikes throughout the year.  There seems to be only one clone of this plant in existence, since every plant I've seen is a division of the plant with the clonal name 'Stalky,' which I believe came from the collection of Phil and Anne Jessup.

The species comes from Venezuela and Columbia.  Lepanthopsis refers to the similarity between this genus and the genus Lepanthes.  Astrophora, refers to the star-like shape of the flowers, which are indeed like little purple stars.  The flowers are 4 mm in size and the plant about 8 cm tall.  The plant is tolerant of a wide range of temperatures and will soon grow into a specimen with hundreds, even thousands of flowers.  When I received a cultural award on this plant it had 650 flowers and 70 buds on 70 flower spikes.

Barbosella cucullata

Barbosella cucullata is another species from Ecuador, but also from Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.  It is also another Pleurothallid, related to Masdevallia. Many of the species in this genus are very small, but this one is a bit larger with thick, channeled leaves about 5 cm tall, long, erect flower spikes (15 cm), and single flowers 4 cm in size.  In nature it is a lithophyte, growing on moss-covered rocks, and in cultivation seems to like a thick pad of moss as well.  I grow it in a small pot in which the live moss has formed a thick pad well above the top of the pot and there it thrives, partly buried in the moss.

Lepanthopsis vinacea

For miniatures that are easy to grow, floriferous and beautiful, one should consider the smaller species in the genus Lepanthopsis.  As the name indicates these are closely related to Lepanthes and are native to the Americas from Mexico to the West Indies and Brazil.  There are 25 species in the genus and this plant is fairly typical with its small but intensely colored flowers.

Lepanthopsis vinacea comes from Venezuela and Ecuador and as the name vinacea indicates has "wine-red" flowers.  Under a macro lens the flowers show themselves to be nearly transparent and arranged in soldier-like rows along the spikes.  These flowers are only a few millimeters in size and the plant is only about 6 cm tall with  flower spikes about the same length as the growths.

I've provided pictures of the flowers both on a black and a light colored background:

Alaticaulia impostor

This unusual Masdevallia, now reclassifed as Alaticaulia, comes from Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. The plant is about 15 cm tall and the large flowers are carried on 40 cm long flower spikes. The flowers are 6-8 cm in size and each spike blooms successively. The name impostor means "deceiver," a reference to the fact that the species was misidentified for many years.