Masdevallia tovarensis
Masdevallia tovarensis is a perfect Christmas orchid with its snow white flowers - the ice queeen amongst masdevallias! Even the white lines running down the sepals remind me of the lines left by ice skaters on the ice.
Many Masdevallias produce flowers singly on thin spikes but M. tovarensis produces flowers in ones and twos on chunky flower spikes that flower repeatedly for several years.
Masdevallia tovarensis is endemic to Venezuela where it grows in cool wet forest from 1600m to 2400m and so is ideally suited to life in our Cloud Forest Greenhouse with a minimum of 12C and vents opening at 20C. We find that the species appreciates good air movement and never becoming soggy and so grow our stock plants in small baskets quite high up the greenhouse on our hanging mesh. (photo below)
The flowers are very long lasting if not sprayed with water and so we water carefully when plants bloom but do keep plants well watered all year.
If you grow the species remember not to remove the flower spikes until they are completely dead and brown