Meet the Pitcher Plants

Sarracenia purpurea ssp. montana

Attention carnivorous plant fans: did you know that you can see three different Pitcher Plant genera on display at the Garden? You may have seen our native Sarracenia in the large bog on the south side of the Fuqua Orchid Center.


The Nepenthes occupy their own corner of the Conservatory's Special Exhibits gazebo.

Nepenthes adnata

In order to see the rarest of the Pitcher Plants, the Sun Pitchers (Heliamphora) you will need to make a trek to the Tropical High Elevation House.

Heliamphora minor in flower in the Tropical High Elevation House

Of the three Pitcher Plant genera native to the Americas, the Sun Pitchers (Heliamphora) are perhaps the strangest. In addition to the ususal trapping epuipment (digestive glands, downward-pointing hairs), each pitcher is surmounted by an alien-looking spoon-shaped structure--a sweet and sticky lure for insects. 


In nature the Sun Pitchers grow only on the tabletop mountains, or tepui of the Guayana Highlands of southern Venezuela, Guayana and northern Brazil. The tepui rise 5,000 to 10,000 above the surrounding savanah. One of the largest, Auyan-Tepui, has an area of 286 sq. miles. Angel Waterfalls, the tallest waterfall in the world tumbles 3,300 ft. down the sheer face of Auyan-Tepui.


Tepui are isolated from each other by deep valleys and thus creating islands of vegetation, each with its own flora. Weathering and erosion have carved weird formations into the sandstone and created an other-worldy landscape with many unique micro habitats. Cold temperatures, strong winds, mists, high rainfall and intense sunlight are typical.


The tepuis are remote; the tops are accessible by helicopter, so very few people have seen Heliamphora growing in their native habitat. 


You can see our plants, no helicopter required, on permanent display in the Tropical High Elevation House.

June in the Orchid Display House

The Phalaenopsis Blast, summer edition. 

Under the cedar pergola are a variety of Cattleya and Laelia species. The Orchid Display House is great place to rest on  a hot afternoon.

Tulip Orchid Tuesday

Anguloa hohenlohii

All of the Tulip Orchids are lovely, but the russet colored Anguloa hohenlohii is especially beautiful. The inside of the flower is gold overlaid with red spots.

Anguloa clowesii

If you can tear your eyes away from the flowers you will see the new shoot visible behind the flowers. Those new shoots are practically begging for food. Tulip Orchids can become very large in bright light, coolish temperatures and with regular fertilizing during active growth. Some of the largest that I have seen were grown by Marc Hachadourian at the New York Botanical Garden-- beautiful plants with enormous pseudobulbs and leaves nearly two feet tall.

Many anguloas produce new shoots and flowers simultaneously, a trait that can exasperate a grower. (Shoots produced after flowering is a more common sequence in orchids.) By the time our plants have finished flowering and returned to the back up greenhouse the young shoots are nearly mature. I have to rush like crazy in order to repot them all before they finish their annual growth cycle. And I already have plenty to repot!

& the Laelias Keep Coming

Laelia tenebrosa

Laelia purpurata label missing

Laelia purpurata carnea

Yes, there are orchids in flower this week besides the laelias, but photographing them has become a compulsion. They're handsome plants and so photogenic.

I love the evocative Latin names given to some of the laelia species--tenebrosa comes from the same root as tenebrae, a word I associate with Good Friday and which means 'darkness'. Carnea is 'flesh-red'. We grow our Laelia tenebrosa orchids under the same conditions as our laelia purpuratas--very warm and very bright.

My heart sinks when I notice a label missing from one of our plants. A missing label is a big headache for us for a variety of reasons, and not just because there are hundreds of Laelia purpurata varieties to sift through. Even if we succeed in identifying our plant's name, all of the other data that we have collected on that particular plant (source, acquisition date, etc.) has become forever disassociated. We usually attach our collection labels to the pot in which the orchid is planted, but sometimes labels break, or are removed. *Sigh* If you can identify our Laelia purpurata 'label missing', drop me a line.

Tulip Orchids

Anguloa uniflora 

June is a terrific month to visit the Fuqua Orchid Center. Three outstanding orchid groups flower simultaneously: Laelia purpurata, Stanhopea and the Tulip Orchids (Anguloa).

This week you can see several Tulip Orchid species, including Anguloa virginalis and uniflora, pictured below growing side by side in the Tropical High Elevation House. In Peru these two species are often found growing together according to Henry Oakeley's book, Lycaste, Ida and Anguloa.

Both species grow as terrestrials or lithophytes in Andean tropics at about 1200 to 1500 m. Anguloa uniflora is endemic to Peru and it grows in extremely variable habitats--dry sunny slopes to moist dappled woodlands, writes Oakeley. Anguloa virginalis occurs over a wider geographical range Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia often in full sun.

Cool and sunny is a big challenge in our greenhouses in summer. As our summers grow hotter more of our anguloas have begun to migrate permanently from the intermediate back up greenhouse to the Tropical High Elevation House.

Tulip Orchid fragrance will surprise you. It's Elmer's paste with a hint of menthol, an enticing aroma to male bees of certain species in the genus Eulaema. They collect the liquid fragrance by scratching the flower lip. The fragrance may be used to attract female Eulaema bees.

Anguloa uniflora in the Tropical High Elevation House

Anguloa is sometimes called the Cradle Orchid, in reference to movement of the lip, visible in the photo (above) edged with yellow. When a bee alights on the hinged lip his weight causes it to rock backward, pushing him up against the tip of the column and in contact with the pollen masses.  The bee often leaves the flower with the pollen attached to his thorax. It's easy to rock the "cradle" using your fingertip.

Anguloa virginalis in the Tropical High Elevation House

The journey of these two Tulip Orchids from the Andean rainforests to the 18th century Spanish court of Carlos III is a story with an Indiana Jones flavor. More about that in an upcoming post.

The Sweet Fragrance of Stanhopea

Stanhopea embreei in the Fuqua Orchid Center

The most deliciously fragrant orchids of summer are without question the stanhopeas. June marks the beginning of Stanhopea season in the Fuqua Orchid Center.

A Stanhopea in flower is an unforgettable experience. I remember years ago having to crawl under a greenhouse bench to get my first look at a pendant Stanhopea spike and to inhale its confectionery fragrance. Each flower looked like a bird in flight. And the fragrance was good enough to eat.

To my nose Stanhopea embreei smells like vanilla creme icing, even though my brain, which left Organic Chemistry by the roadside years ago, knows that the floral compounds common in Stanhopea include methyl cinnamate, benzlaldehyde, and cinneol.

Why the intense fragrance? Who is the intended recipient? Not us, of course. It's all about the pollinator: male Euglossine bees, who collect the fragrance, not for food, but to attract female bees.

Sad, but Stanhopea flowers only last about three days. It's as though the plant can't sustain the massive effort required to produce such an extraordinary creation. The good news is that a mature plant often produces several spikes each season. Come and enjoy the fragrance!

Mimicry & Slipper Orchids

Paphiopedilum glanduliferum, a tropical slipper orchid that grows on limestone cliffs  in New Guinea

I'm often asked if our slipper orchids are carnivorous. They are not. The pouch of the slipper orchid is instead involved in a fairly gruesome pollination mechanism.

Many tropical Asiatic slipper orchids are pollinated by flies. The spots, bumps, hairs, carrion colors and foul odors produced by the flower attract flies seeking a food source. 
Paphiopedilum glanduliferum is pollinated by hoverflies (Syrphidae) which normally lay their eggs on aphid colonies. Aphids are the food source for the larval hoverflies. The glandular hairs in the center of the flower may mimic an aphid colony.

Pollination takes place when the hoverfly becomes trapped in the pouch of the flower. The escape route forces the hoverfly in close contact with the pollen masses. As a result the fly often departs for another flower with the pollen attached to its body.

We don't have hoverflies in the Fuqua Orchid Center. Even if we did we would prefer to hand pollinate our orchids (using a pencil, very low tech) so that we know which plant contributed the pollen and on what date. A "controlled cross," in other words.

There are always Paphiopedilum orchids in flower in the Fuqua Orchid Center. We will be happy to point them out to you.

Isochilus major

Isochilus major has a Cinderella story. Our undemanding little plant sat on a bench in the backup greenhouse for years, never flowering, patiently growing, while its bigger showier neighbors were taken, one by one, to be installed and admired in the Orchid Display House.

One day a space opened up in the Fuqua Orchid Center's High Elevation House. An important place. In fact, the most prominent spot in the entire greenhouse, right up front--the very first thing that visitors see upon arriving. Can a spot like that remain empty? No way. In desperation I searched the greenhouses for an orchid.

And so, in a single moment our Isochilus, passed over for years, was whisked into a world of activity and attention. And what happened next?

Incredible!
Honestly, I can't say for sure why this plant suddenly flowered. Isochilus major does range widely in elevation through Mexico, Central America and northern South America. It could be that our plant was collected from the higher end of this range and should have been installed in the High Elevation House right from the start. (A princess all along!  ...not sure if that make me the prince or the fairy godmother...)
Anyway, a happy ending all around.

The Necklace Orchid

Coelogyne monilirachis growing in the Fuqua Orchid Center

The most remarkable orchids aren't always the largest. Coelogyne monilirachis is a great example.

Coelogyne monilirachis is a tropical orchid with gorgeous dark bronze leaves and translucent orange flowers. Even the flower spike is extraordinary. The flowers are borne successively at the end of what looks like a strand of beads. Monilis means necklace-like.

In the wild Coelogyne monilirachis grows as an epiphyte in lower montane forests at 1100 to 2700 m in the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo.  In the Fuqua Orchid Center our plant has flowered continuously for a couple of years. I have never seen another one in cultivation. Stop by and discover this wonderful orchid!

Laelia lobata

Laelia lobata flowering in the Fuqua Orchid Center

Another of the lovely Brazilian orchids flowering now in the Fuqua Orchid Center is Laelia lobata.

For most of the year our plants grow side by side with Laelia purpurata in the warm back up greenhouse. Although their cultural requirements are similar, for some reason Laelia lobata's flowering season is less predictable than that of Laelia purpurata. Sometimes we see a flush of flowers in fall.

Laelia lobata is not uncommon in cultivation. Unfortunately its remaining habitat in the wild has become restricted to vertical rocky outcrops around Rio de Janeiro, mainly at 200-800 m. Although it usually grows on rocky substrates, Laelia lobata is occasionally seen as an epiphyte in the canopy of taller trees.