Spider Orchid Spider Orchid

An amazing orchid that produces big, spider like flowers, growing 15cm or more from tip to tip. Up to 20 short flower spikes will bloom side by side. Spider Orchid flowers have a pleasant fragrance.
These Spider Orchid pseudobulbs are divisions of mature plants and can flower in 1 to 2 years.
Spider Orchids are cool growing and endemic to the mountainous regions of South America. Here they evolved for pollination by female insectivorous wasps. The wasps prey on spiders, and the spider like appearance of the bloom tricks the wasp into its petals!
They like to be moist in summer, and positioned somewhere with good ventilation. Place your Spider Orchid in filtered light or part shade. Water frequently in warm weather, and less in winter. In cool climates grow indoors in cool seasons. Their ideal temperature range is between 10 and 30C.
It is an epiphytic orchid so can be grown on bark or similar, or in pots or hanging baskets using an orchid substrate.
The leaves of Spider Orchids are bright green and strappy, growing to around 30cm long. Each pseudobulb has two.
The Brassia Orchid genus were named after an 18th Century English botanist, William Brass. The species name, verrucosa, means warty, and it refers to the lumpy green spots on the petals.

Supplied as: Pots