Just saw a weird orchid at the conservatory in Portland

I was at the Hoyt Arboretum last Saturday checking out their greenhouse collection and one orchid caught my eye. It was a Dracula orchid, named after the dragon not the vampire I guess, and the flowers looked like monkey faces with fangs. The volunteer there told me it's native to the cloud forests in Ecuador and Colombia. I had no idea orchids could grow in such specific conditions, like at 6,000 feet elevation with constant mist. The blooms were about 3 inches across and had a weird purple and white pattern. Has anyone else run into these weird orchids at a botanic garden?

2 comments

2 Comments

dianaanderson16d ago

Actually that Hoyt Arboretum greenhouse is amazing, I went there last spring and spent like three hours just staring at the weirdest plants I've ever seen. But I gotta disagree with you calling it a Dracula orchid being named after the dragon, pretty sure it's named after Count Dracula because of the whole fang thing and the way the flower looks like a little vampire face. I've seen photos of those Dracula orchids online and they are genuinely unsettling in a cool way, not cute like monkey faces at all. The volunteer might have gotten it mixed up because there's also a monkey face orchid called Dracula simia that looks way more like a little primate than a vampire.

dianaanderson17d ago

Wait, did I accidentally walk into a greenhouse full of MONKEY FACES while I was just trying to admire the pretty flowers? That sounds way cooler than my usual luck with plants, I once killed a cactus by overwatering it so bad it turned into slime. I've never seen a Dracula orchid in person but now I'm totally jealous and need to find one before I manage to kill it too.