Maxillaria picta
This orchid takes me back to the year 2000, when I came across Maxillaria picta for the first time in the Mountains of Brazil. I was walking through regrowth forest at 1200m altitude when I was stpped in my tracks by a gourgeous honey scent that filled the air. There amongst the re4mails of a ancient fallen tree was a plant of Maxillaria picta, 1.5m across, growing where it had fallen. (Photo below)
Presumably the plant had survived the fire that had swept through this patch of forest about thirty years ago and carried on growing on its now dead tree which has since fallen. The regrowth forest still lets plenty of light down to ground level and so the plant is growing and flowering happily.
In cultivation the species is trouble free and not too fussy. We have grown it both cool and warm though today it lives in our cloud forest greenhouse on a top shelf where it gets plenty of light. We find it flowers in mid winter and then comes into growth so we keep it a little drier from November to January and then water well throughout the rest of the year.
The flowers are large and really attractive - a warm yellow on the inside of the tepals and cream with red spots (hence the name) on the outside of the tepals. The flowers are very fragrant just like the ones on the wild plant we found in Brazil.