Barbosella dusenii

Regulars will know that we grow a lot of miniature orchids at Isle of Portland Orchids but Barbosella dusenii takes miniature to a new level.

Barbosella dusenii is our orchid with the smallest leaves. The leaves are a few mm long and produced on a creeping rhizome with relatively gigantic flowers produced a couple of times every year with a main flowering in the Autumn.

We grow the species mounted which it clearly enjoys and avoids the threat of the plant becoming smothered in moss.

The species is native to the Brazillian coastal cloud forests at around 1000m that we have explored on our expeditions where the wet season (summer) is rainy and the dry season (winter) is still damp due to heavy mists and dew. We replicate these conditions in our cloud forest greenhouse by hanging plants low down in the greenhouse and spraying daily with a minimum of 12C.