Dryadella zebrina in flower again
 

This one turns out to be a pretty reliable bloomer, every spring I have flowers.

I grow it a bit too bright which causes red in the leaves, but it seems happy enough for that.

The flowers are tiny tiny tiny. With my compact camera I had to be almost touching them to get photos. The macro lens means they can be taken more easily (especially as since getting the DSLR hubby takes a big interest in taking the photos for me :) )

The web on the flowers wasn't noticed with the naked eye, only after we had seen it on the pictures did we manage to just about spot it without the camera. Pretty certain this is just spider web even thought I've had a spider mite problem recently, as the mites don't appear to have reached my greenhouse.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3699/8...15dd6cc093.jpg http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3817/8...10af034a6c.jpg http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2874/8...14e456369c.jpg http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5454/8...8fc6800d99.jpg

What an interesting plant and blooms. The flowers look rather spidery. Maybe it's spinning its own web? LOL

Fabulous!

Thanks Picotee and Sonya. I find this such a cute one.

Rosie,

I've never come across this one before. It's so different - beautiful little blooms. Thanks for sharing.

-J

Thanks J :)

I love this plant. How are you growing it? I have a Dradella elata that is just barely clinging to life and its one of my favorites in my collection

I like those flowers. Good pictures, too, Rosie!

Steve

Thanks Steve and Pleuro3 :)

I keep it in my greenhouse, which has a minimum of 5C (41F) in the winter (sometimes might go down a degree or so more when the heater can't keep up), it get's warmer in the summer depending on how warm our weather is. I have been looking at what UK temps are like and we average arround 20C (60F) in the summer but can go as high as 30C (86F) on occasions and get plenty of days around 25C (77F).

I tend to try and hide it behind other plants as it can get quite bright in there on clear days, but it should't ever be in direct light, in winter bubble wrap helps diffuse the light and in summer I have a sheer curtain that blocks direct light. It does get more light than it should hence the red in the leaves, but it seems to do fine anyway.

I try and keep humididy up in the greenhouse for the masdies in there, but while it can be 70%+ at times, it also drops to more like 50% on dry days when I've not done anything to raise the humidity.

I grow it in moss in a porous clay pot and try not to let the medium dry out (same as my masdies), this has a cooling effect due to evaporation from the clay, I think the fact that the medium never dries out also helps it cope with the low humidity days. It's due for repotting actually, just done all the masdies but didn't want to disturb the flowers on this so I've left it a bit longer.

It seems to flower every year around this time, so not sure if the cooler temps in the winter help with that or not. I don't really know what factors prompt blooming in these, I've been quite surprised that I've stumbled on the right conditions somehow :)

---------- Post added at 10:15 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:00 AM ----------

Forgot to mention, you can see algae and live moss on the pot and on the surface of the dead sphag it grows in. This is due to the fact it is always moist and I get it on all the orchids I grow this way.

I should note here that they don't stay wet, just moist.

It's amazing how often you only notice things like spider webs on flowers once you get back to the PC and look at the pictures you've taken! (At least, it's like that for me when I hand-hold macros; on tripods you get more of a chance to notice things!).

Cool little pleurothallid, thanks for sharing :)

Thanks Discus,

Yes, with the hand held I often only noticed back on the PC. With the DSLR on a tripod sometimes we have the images coming straight to the PC before the shutter goes off so we see them quite quickly. We can also control the camera settings from the PC but we usually find that easier to do direct on the camera.

Thank you RosieC. I've let it dry out in the past but in my new setup I think I'll be able to keep it more moist. Hopefully it will recover. I will also try to let it cool down in the winter. :bowing