Dryadella aurea
Dryadella aurea 'orange'is a recent introduction to our collection. We have a real soft spot for Dryadella after coming across two species in our expeditions to Brazil in th early 2000s.
Dryadella aurea was only described in 1999 and is native to warm wet forests in Ecuador and Peru from 700-950m altitude. It is one of our real mini miniatures as shown by my fingers in the photo.
Druadella are closely related to Masdevallias and share the a flower structure dominated by a triangle of three sepals but dryadellas do have a relatively large lip.
Dryadellas all produce their flowers on short stems at the base of their semi -terete leaves.
Dryadella aurea the flowers are successive on the short stems and so plants are in flower for a long period.
We grow all of our Dryadellas mounted on cork bark as this shows off the flowers and the habit of the plant so well, as well as ensuring the miniature plants are not out competed by moss.
We spray our mounted plants daily, twice daily in hot weather.