First I have to go one step back down. The valid name for this plant is Cirrhaea loddigesii, and it is not rare.
For my 200th post I wanted to show something special. Today I showed the photos to the Main Curator at the Botanical Garden in Munich. He knows the Gongorinae very well, has posted a comprehensive gallery of photos in the web and has carried out a deep field research on Cirrhaea species in Brasil. He recognized the plant clearly as Cirrhaea loddigesii, and emphasized that flowers are very variable. Even within one spike flowers may be very different as depicted in Schlechter, Die Orchideen, IC, page 2398, for this species. The phenomenon is called heteromorphy. Moreover Schlechter listed Cirrhaea seidelii as synonym to loddigesii.
With this knowledge I took a second look to the Swiss orchid library at orchid.unibas.ch. There you can find the hand coloured painting for Lindleys original description of Cirrhaea loddigesii in Edwards Botanical Register. There are also hand drawn and dated 1984 sheets, made by R. Jenny of a plant, that was given to the Botanical Garden in Heidelberg by Pfister. Pfister was a trader and exceptional expert of Brazilian orchids. Jenny has written a monography on Gongora species and is one of the best experts worldwide.
I know that my plant was imported in the eighties by Pfister as well. It was labelled Cirrhaea seidelii. So I have enough reason to assume that it is from the same source, well examined by others and in fact Cirrhaea lodigesii. It is doubtful if Cirrheae seidelii is a valid taxon.
Growing conditions: This plant was grown by its owner in a greenhouse dedicated to pleurothallids with high humidity year round. I got my division from him many years ago. I had to move my plants several times into various greenhouses. The plant was at its best in the extraordinary warm and sunny summer of 2003. Then I had placed it in the coolest spot on a concrete wall next to the open door and watered the pebble ground nearby as often as possible.
Being a part of the so called ant gardens, I think that Gongora and their relatives are sensitive, if the potting medium is old and about to break down. Now I use hand picked medium grade fir bark mixed with clay pellets (Seramis), eventually Perlite, and eventually a bit chopped new dried New Zealand sphagnum moss in 8 cm plastic pots.
Rowangreen, that's the post and exactly what I mean: A well draining fresh medium, kept evenly moist but not wet all the time.
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