Here is a real treat for you! Masdevallia glandulosa is a really special orchid with beautiful colors and amazing little candy-like bubbles (glands) inside the flower tube, hence the name… the epithet is derived from the Latin glandulosus which means “bearing the glands.” It has a very pleasant scent too, a little bit spicey like cinnamon or cloves mixed with honey perhaps. I got it from Ecuagenera in September, and I am so thrilled to see it bloom finally!
It is a small epiphyte from northern Ecuador and Peru where it grows in wet forests with a distinct dry season at altitudes of 1200 to 1800 meters. I grow mine cool, but it has been found in a valley off a small tributary of the Rio Maranon in northern Peru where it is relative mild, so it can handle intermediate growing temperatures as well.
Great, Ecuagenera has some great plants.
How do you keep your tank cool throughout the year? I have a similar setup with epiweb, altough smaller, but i havent found a “cost-effective” way to keep the temperatures down.
Can you explain some how your night/day temps are and humidity, and what kind of technology you use to cool?
Thanks
Beautiful photos of this wonderful species!!!
Thanks a lot guys! I agree, Ecuagenera do have some fantastic plants!! 🙂 Well, yes… I guess the photos turned out OK after all, but like we talked about I still feel that I can do better. I just need to read up on my equipment and practice some more. 🙂
Jeff, I do not know where in the world you are, but here in Sweden cooling is only really a problem a couple of months out of the year. Most of the time I just pipe in cool air directly from the outside via a small vent using a bathroom fan and a simple ventilation hose. I use a thermostat to regulate this fan. In the heat of summer (if you can call it that) temperatures often still drop considerably at night, but for those few weeks when it is just too hot I tried using a small portable AC last summer. Worked fine, although it did dry out the air some. Now I have a humidistat so next summer this should as problematic. I don’t know how cost effective this solution is, but it is required for such a short period here that I don’t really care.
Temperature: Day 18-20C, night 10-12C (cooler part of the year/mostly), day 20-22C, night 12-14 (warmer part/summer) controlled by Lucky Reptile thermostat hooked up to fan pulling in outside air, or AC unit (only a few weeks in summer)
Humidity: Honeywell ultrasonic humidifier hooked up to a Lucky Reptile humidistat set to maintain RH 80% day and 90% night
Water (humidity): Vivaria Rain system (14 nozzles at the moment, might need a few more) + drip system mainly for the moss on the back wall (thinking of ditching this eventually and get more rain nozzles instead). I run these in the morning and afternoon allowing things to dry up for about 6 hours in between.
Please check out all my posts on the cool vivarium build for a lot more details and photos.
Fascinating flowers! I love your description of the scent. I saw a Masdevallia once that smelled like sugar cookies.
Thanks Brian! 🙂 Mmmmm sugar cookies… that would be a nice one to have. I don’t know if it is just my nose (it is not the most finely tuned instrument) but I think there is an undertone of honey to most Masdevallia scents I smell… at least so far.
Hi! My name is Merih, Writing you from Turkey :)I’m 21 years old an I am botanicmania 🙂 I admired and got shock after saw your website. I have nepenthes and dioneas. From Hong Kong and Bangkok I bought some orchid species.I just found your site, from now on, I will watch it with pleasure.. I’ll be so happy if you check my blog.. Thank you for sharing 🙂
Thanks Merih! It is always nice to hear that you enjoy my blog. 🙂 I really like your illustrations, you are very talented. Good luck with your orchids too!