Guido has it right about the name. I collected boisserianum in Peru in 1988 at a place called Tres Cerritos. There were over 50,000 plants growing on a steep slope of volcanic red clay in an area about 100 feet at the base by 50 feet high. There were seedlings all the way to mature plants with leaf spans of 2 meters. Phrag. wallisii also grew along with them but in deeper shade.
They were indeed on Southwest slopes with limited direct sunlight in the late afternoon. Water was trickling down the root systems. The roots were just under a surface of moss which covered the volcanic clay. Moss is nitrogen fixing and I am sure that helped them thrive. The Ph of the volcanic clay was 5.5 and the temps were in the mid 70's to low 80's fahrenheit in day and nights were in the upper 50's. This was during the dry season in August. Many pleurothalids and other orchids grew at the top of the hill where the light was stronger. I remember there was a farm below across the road with thousands of boissierianums having been just destroyed by fire for agricultural purposes. These farmers thought we were crazy to be so interested in such weeds. You could see it on their faces. It was also curious to me that boissierianum, reticulatum and czerwiakowianum (cherva-kof-ianum) grew all mixed up together on the same hillside. Happy phrags, Jerry Lee Fischer, Orchids Limited _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
