Paphiopedilum spicerianum

This rather cryophilic species has its 'fingerprints' on the creation of hundreds of todays hybrid Venus's shoes ; It is rarely come across in its ''pureblooded''form . Its leaves are monochromatically green and they measure 10 in/25 cm or less. The brown -and -green flower develops individually on a 6-8 -in /15-20-cm -long spike.It has two dominant features- a snow-white upper sepal with a pink central stripe and a similarly colored staminodium (a scutellar middle part of the flower bearing the reproductive organs ). Grow the species the same as P. insigne . You will support its good flowering if you summer the plant in semi-shade outside the greenhouse. It blooms in the winter and comes from the Himalayas .