>My greenhouse does tend to run on the cool >side as I have a swamp cooler that maintains the the high temps at 85 degrees.
Pholidotas tend to colonise open, exposed branches on big, old trees. The mainland species enjoy a climate that is monsoonal, which is to say that it has a cool, extremely dry but bright winter and a war, wet, gray summer. Most are exposed to a hot, dry Spring March-May after which the rains start and the temperature tends to fall. This pattern is modulated by how close the landmass is to the Equator (obviously!) how far East the plant grows - the more Easterly, the less extreme the monsoon and the earlier the onset of the rains - and by altitude. It is safe to say that the plants from the belt that runs West-East through the wet Himalayas, Northern Thailand and Laos, Viet Nam are most differentiated by altitude. Lowland plants get an extreme cooking in Spring - 40-45 C in desiccating dryness - whilst higher-growing species may only get to 20C and receive some dew. This "three month trial" seems to be what sets altitude bands, to judge from distribution around rain-shadow, katabatic wind areas and so forth. I emphasise because so many mainland temperate Asian species are killed by kindness. If you water lowland plants in winter they will not see spring. If you keep highland plants too hot in winter, they will at best not flower and at worse, die. Mushy compost is another killer: plants like this Pholidota often live as complete aerophytes, with ten year old pseudobulbs anchored to a branch and everything else dangling in fresh air. Nepalis call the more open species "sausage plant", because they pseudobulbs dangle like chains of sausage. Denser species like P. imbricata form hard mats over bark with scarcely any compost formed over the root system. _____________________________________ Oliver Sparrow Tel: UK (0)20 7736 9716 www.chforum.org www.treknepal.org www.datafreeze.com
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