We know that autumn is here when our Stenoglottis start to flower.

We have two species, Stenoglottis fimbriata that starts to flower in September and Stenoglottis longifolia (below and still in bud) that flowers about a month later.

In Stenoglottis fimbriata the basal rosette of leaves are spotted in purple, unlike Stenoglottis longifolia that has unspotted leaves.  The plants here are all first flowering divisions with spikes to 50cm. Mature plants have 80cm spikes with up to 100 flowers (below)

The species comes from Eastern South Africa where it is found growing in moss and humus on rocks, banks and fallen trees in shaded forest and bush from the coast up to 1800m. This is a habitat we have explored around Durban where forest remnants have a distinct wet season and dry season and many plants including Clivia and sundews find a niche on moss covered rocks along with orchids.

We grow the species in our Cool Asia section where it flowers from September to Christmas and then loses its leaves. We then give it a dryish rest until new shoots appear in late February from which time we give steadily increasing water.

It is lovely to see our bench full of Stenoglottis with spikes and flowers appearing (below) we will be offering these online and at our open evening next Monday (4-7pm)