Quote:
Originally Posted by King_of_orchid_growing:)
But why peat and humus?
Why not like an orchid, bark?
Aren't they epiphytes?
Peat suggests it's a bog plant.
Humus suggests it grows on rotting wood or that it grows in topsoil.
Bark suggests it grows on a living tree, like a true epiphyte.
This is weird. Now I wanna know, and I don't even own this plant.
Is it an epiphyte of swamp forests growing on the lower tree trunks of trees or something? That's the only thing that makes sense!
Man, I hope someone on the OB who's actually from the Philippines can answer this question. I've not found a good picture of it in the wild also! How cryptic were the people who first introduced this plant into cultivation?! In my opinion, some secrets should never be honored, and this is one of them!
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My college intro. botany professor, Consuelo V. Asis, who literally wrote the often referenced book on endemic plants of the Philippines, said that it was endemic to the lowland rain forests of Luzon and the Cordillera range. I spent several weeks hiking many of those aforesaid rain forests in my field botany class, and never saw a Medinilla magnifica growing on a tree. As it is a large plant, and as I was always in the company of several experienced Pilipino field botanists, I doubt I could have missed one if it was there
Sadly, the only Medinillas I saw in the Philippines were in cultivation, and growing on Osmunda fern roots or on coarsely chopped coconut husks.
I was just about to post a reply saying sorry but I have nothing I can add that might be of use, when our housekeeper walked by me sitting at the computer. She saw the picture from the link and said something in her dialect that translates as 'oh there are tons of those growing in the woods where I grew up'. She grew up on a remote island in the extreme south of the Philippines, nowhere near the mostly Northern rainforest where Medinilla is supposedly endemic.
So to muddy the waters further, while I never saw it wild where it is supposedly endemic she is certain she saw it on the ground way, way south (as in the direction of Borneo, Malaysia and Indonesia) of where it isn't.
Granted this would be in the mid 1970's for both of our experiences and since she isn't a botanist might not have distinguished a different but related species.
Dr Asis has since passed away but if I get a chance I'll try to get in touch with some of my Pilipino friends in the Botany Dept. of the Univ. of the Phil.
Sorry if I've just added to the confusion
bingo
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