I think I've figured them out for real this time. This is thanks to a YouTube video put out by the YouTuber, Orchids & Fynbos. He showed us all where and how Disa uniflora really grow.
The clue was that they grew around a ton of restios and ferns.
In other words, their roots and tuberoids are buried within fibrous vegetative material between rock crevices along waterfall drip zones.
I also noticed that wherever the water from the waterfall collected in seepage areas, there were NO Disa uniflora - which means they don't like sitting in water for long periods. If there were accounts of Disa uniflora roots present under water in the wild, those may have been temporary situations. Water may have receded over time so that eventually their roots do not sit in water the entire time.
I'm under the impression we were overwatering evergreen Disa spp. the whole time, which explains why I more often than not observed damaged root systems in this group of Disa spp.
Then there's the under fertilizing. As I've mentioned in the past, I suspected they grew in areas where the nutrients in the "soil" where they were growing were being eroded out of the rocks they were growing around. It is not nutrient poor. The nutrients may be available in the forms known as orthoclase or plagioclase (rock minerals present in volcanic rocks).
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Philip
Last edited by King_of_orchid_growing:); 05-07-2023 at 07:03 PM..
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