Masdevallia picturataI just adore this little Masdevallia, the shear texture of the flowers and the super long sepals, mmmm it really does something for me. You know you are dealing with a real mini when the moss is threatening to overtake the orchid, ha ha. Well, I love the “real” look the moss ads to the scene. These two small orchids are mounted high up on one of the EpiWeb branches in the cool vivarium. It is only about about 25 cm from the 80W Dulux fixtures so they are enjoying quite a bit of light, and all these flowers are the seal of approval.

Masdevallia picturata grows in cool wet cloud forests in Central- to South America at elevations of 1500 to 2750 meters. It usually blooms in the fall and winter to early spring. The name comes from the Latin word picturatus, which means painted, referring to all the little spots on the flowers. The great Dr. Lauer has actually moved this species from Masdevallia to Fissia, a new genus that previously used to used to be a subgenus in Masdevallia.

As much as I admire Dr. Luer’s work, I am feeling a bit torn weather I want to go in an rename all these species… I recently talked to a friend in the growing business about this dilemma. He said that there are always going to be those who like to divide and those who like to join species, and you just have to decide which camp you agree with. He prefers to keep the Masdevallia genus as one large group, but I think that I am definitely leaning towards Luer’s ideas on this… but I won’t change the name tag on this one just yet.