Dracula chimaera is a small sized cold grower from the cloud forests of Colombia. I have always admired this very large Dracula species and I have anxiously followed the development of the bud all summer. Today the flower has opened up and it is amazing!! It can carriy up to 6 single flowers in succession so I am looking forward to many more hairy wonders though this fall. The flowers grow pretty much straight down or out the sides (the last photo below shows how it grows naturally) so it is best grown mounted. I keep mine on an EpiWeb slab on the wetter side in the cool vivarium as it likes a lot of water all year round.
The Chimera or Chimaera in Greek mythology was a monstrous fire-breathing female creature with a the body of a lioness and with a snakes tail and then the head of a goat sticking out at the center of her spine… yeah… gotta love the imagination of those Greeks. It so happens that Chimera is also the name of a really cool trance song too… check ít out. In modern time the term chimera haver become to mean an impossible or hard to believe fantasy, and since this flower is not only huge, it is also dark and rather hairy (!) I can see why Luer chose this name for it back in 1978. The plant itself is quite modest in size but my flower measures 24 cm tall and 6 cm wide, and that is quite large among Pleurothallids. Personally I adore it! I don’t know what it is about hairy flowers, but I just love them.
very nice! it’s hard for me to grow these guys b/c it is difficult to give it the culture it requires. Lovely pictures. what’s that it’s hanging out with in the last picture- is that an ang.distichum in the background?
Thank you! 🙂 Yes, Dracula are a little finicky about humidity and temperature. I have been dreaming about growing this genus for years and I am so happy I finally have the right conditions for it. The two orchids hanging in the background of that last photo are Dichaea hystricina and Dichaea poicillantha which I hope will bloom too soon.
It looks insanely beautiful!
Thanks – it is and I adore it!! You should see it in real life, it is huge!! 🙂
Love your wounderful pictures, like small masterpieces of light & color. Just found your site, looking forward to read alot about cool vivarium later on. 🙂
Thanks Magnus! Nice to hear that you enjoy my photos. Hopefully I will deliver even better ones soon as I hope “santa” will bring me a DSLR + proper macro lens for xmas this year…. 😉