Common Name The Horse-Shoe Masdevallia
Flower Size 2" [5 cm]
Found in Colombia and Ecuador in the central and western cordillera where it grows on mossy trees at elevations of 500 to 2100 meters as a mini-miniature sized, warm to cold growing epiphyte with slender, erect ramicauls enveloped basally by 2 to 3 loose, tubular sheaths carrying a single, apical, erect, coriaceous, narrowly obovate, acute leaf that is gradually narrowed below into an indistinct petiole and blooms in the fall on a slender, erect, 1 to 2" long inflorescence from low on the ramicaul, with a bract below the middle, and a tubular floral bract carrying a solitary, stale coconut scented flower per inflorescence held at or below leaf height.
This is a floriferous species and old leaves can have new flowers year after year. A fast growing, cold to warm growing epiphyte that needs year round moisture, moderate light, and a pot with an open medium of treefern, sphagnum, perlite and pine or fir bark.
Sold in 9cm pot in sphagnum moss. FS
Photo: Orchi • CC BY-SA 3.0