Conchidium spirodelum care
 

Long time no post! Hope this finds you and all your ‘chids well. I recently inherited about 35 new babies in not so great condition from a friend and have been busy remounting and repotting, and in some cases rehoming.

One of my curious new acquisitions is a Conchidium spirodelum. It’s not in the best shape and I’m currently trying to clean the foliage of calcium deposits that make it look sickly and rather like a lichen.

A search on here comes up with no mention of this species, a the web has little too, but I’m hopeful one of you will have done tips for keeping this alive and, heck, maybe getting it to bloom!

IOSPE lists it as Eria spirodela. Did you look at that?

What an interesting little plant! Its accepted name is now Porpax spirodela. Unfortunately, it seems that Google's results for "Porpax" are mainly showing tips for Epidendrum porpax.

I think that in general, Porpax are deciduous in winter - and need drying out. I just got a couple of different species, have been dutifully keeping them dry all winter and am now starting to see just the beginning of new leaves... starting to water. So for this one, I'd suggest just mounting it up, starting to water lightly.

The white may not be calcium deposits, but rather the natural color of the pseudobulbs (which I suspect those bits are) So maybe just leave them alone, and see what they do as spring approaches. Do check out Eria spirodela on IOSPE... photos both with and without leaves. Does look more like my Porpax than the Erias that I have. Porpax is a really weird genus...