How to grow Dracula spp.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Scrunched up leaves on Dracula chimaera.

A possible reason for this kind of behavior is likely to be because many of the roots were damaged. This probably reduced water availability to the plant, therefore causing the leaves to get scrunched up during development.

Another possibility is that this plant got neglected and had suffered a few points in its life where the potting media dried out too much, too often.

Whichever one it is, I will not ever know because I got the plant this way. However, the two aforementioned reasons are the possibilities of why this happened.

Of course, thinking about it more, it could've easily been both reasons happening simultaneously as well.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Here's an example of what emerging flower spikes will look like on pretty much all Draculas. This photo is of Dracula sodiroi ssp. erythrocodon. It is only after quite a while of development where you can start to see the differences between the spikes that grow upright and those that will grow pendulously between the different Dracula species. Essentially, this is how all Draculas start off with their flower spikes emerging.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Example of upright flower spikes on a Dracula.

Again, this is a photo of Dracula sodiroi ssp. erythrocodon. The spikes on this species of Dracula are upright growing. Right now, I don't have any other Draculas in spike to show an example of what a pendulous flowered Dracula's flower spike looks like. That's a photo moment for another day.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Hope this was helpful in some ways and answers many of the questions people may have about how to grow Draculas.

[RandomGemini]

Excellent post!!! Thank you so much for sharing!

[Tschimm]

I've never thought about growing draculas.
Now I do :-)
Thank you for that post !

[FroggyKnight]

Great!! I'm sure there are plenty of people with questions about this awesome genus. Hopefully a few will find some answers here

Nicely done

John

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Photo of new growth.

This is an example of what a new growth looks like on my Dracula sodiroi ssp. erythrocodon. The new shoot is in the center of the photo, it is flattened and has a spearhead shape to it. It is pretty easy to differentiate a shoot from a spike. Upon emerging, a new shoot will be pretty large compared to a spike and tend to point upwards, while a newly emerging spike will tend to point horizontally, then the spike will either grow upwards or downwards depending on whether the species or hybrid of Dracula bloom on an upright spike or a pendulous spike.

[No-Pro-mwa]

Thanks so much very helpful.

[TexasTim]

Can you share some of the sources you used for your research? Thanks in advance.