masdevallia

Outside of the flowering period ,many Masdevallia species are the spitting image of one another ,and their apperance is far from striking. However,the more boring their green parts look ,the more pleasantly surprising their wonderfully shaped and colored flowers appear! The ''cornerstone'' of the plants is an extremely shortened trailing rhizome giving rise to almost completely reduced stick like remnants of pseudobulbs. The foliage is vivdly green and glossy and forms dense tufts. The morphology of the flowers is quite uniform: they are dominated by sepals usually extended in to long ,thread -like tips and a tongue -shaped or conchoidal lip. They grow on stalks of varying lengths,always individually and there are always a number of them on a plant at once . Representatives of the genus Masdevallia grow epiphytically ,terrestrially or lithophytically on moist rocks . Their cultivation requirements may appear a little extraordinary ,but they are manageable . As they mostly come from cooler ,moist and shady regions ,their roots are not well adapted to dryness. Therefore,they should be cultivated in a finegrained substrate in flowerpots rather than on an epiphytic support . Place them in semi-shade in a well-ventilated place and cool them by frequent misting on sultry days . Do not divide the clusters too often . Approximately 300 species of this systemically unstable and unprocessed genus have been described (some of its representatives have been transffered to independent genera of Andreetaea,Dracula,Dryadella and Trisetella). Masdevallia orchids are known to grow all over Central and especially South America.