Monday, November 29, 2010

Ophidion cunabulum

Ophidion cunabulum, formerly classified as Cryptophoranthus cunabulus, is a tiny orchid in the Pleurothallid group.  The lance-shaped leaves are approximately 5 cm long and the flowers about 1.5 cm, blooming, one or two flowers at a time successively in the pendant spikes.

The plant is from Colombia and both names refer to the shaped of the flower, Ophidon referring to the snake-head shape of the flowers and cunabulum meaning "cradle-shaped."  The plant is easy to grow and blooms freely over a long period of time.

My plant is in a small bonsai pot with the flowers dangling over the sides, but the plant could also very be grown on a mount.  It is tolerant of different temperatures, but prefers fairly high humidity.  I grow the plant under rather high light and the leaves and flower spikes are shorter than they would be otherwise.



4 comments:

  1. Wow...it's really nice and unique! I never see the nice picture as you did here. Thanks for sharing. Can I link some pages of your blog to my blog?

    ReplyDelete
  2. No problem if you want to link pages. Would like to know how to do that myself.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ok thanks...I will do that in my post later.

    ReplyDelete