Peristeria elata is a tough plant

[isurus79]

Just for fun, I went down a rabbit hole this morning and found a taxonomic paper removing this from the Stanhopinae and putting Peristeria into a sister clade: https://bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley....0.2307/2656837

“ Stanhopeinae were sampled most intensively; their generic relationships were highly resolved in the analysis and largely agree with currently accepted generic concepts based on morphology. Coeliopsidinae (Coeliopsis, Lycomormium, Peristeria) are sister to Stanhopeinae. Correlations are drawn among phylogeny, pollination mechanisms, and life history traits.”

[DirtyCoconuts]

phew, you guys can finally put that hot topic to bed

[estación seca]

Here it is today.



The new shoot in the September 2020 photo is the smaller growth seen in today's photos. It showed bug or snail damage at the center as it emerged. Two of the four leaves were eaten, and the growth didn't get very big.

This year's growth is the larger growth with leaves. Something took a few bites out of this, too, but it was later in the growth cycle.



I didn't have a chance to fertilize much this year. I stopped watering later than I had hoped. I'm going to let it dry out and leave it outside most of the winter. I'll bring it in when nights are expected to be too cold. I won't water again until it starts doing something next spring.

I've noticed it seems to climb higher and higher with each new growth. Old pseudobulbs don't last long; they dry up and hollow out. In habitat it lives in leaf litter on deciduous forest edges. It would be covered with dead leaves each fall. This kind of growth habit lets it keep climbing out of the dead leaves.

Also, my paperwhites Narcissus are beginning their flowering.