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Orchid growing guide
The monkey face orchid is a small, cool-growing epiphyte from the cloud forests of Ecuador. Its dust-fine seed only germinates in sterile laboratory flasks or with a partner fungus, so most growers start from flasked seedlings and then keep them cool, shaded, constantly moist and very humid.
Orchid seeds are about the size of dust particles, have no endosperm and only a tiny embryo with almost no food reserve. In nature each seed must be colonised by a mycorrhizal fungus that feeds it. In cultivation, seed is surface-sterilised and sown on a sterile nutrient agar medium in a flask (asymbiotic sowing), or sown with a compatible fungus in a laboratory. Without sterile technique, moulds and bacteria quickly overgrow the nutrient-rich medium.
Not applicable. The seed coat is a thin net of cells, and abrasion would destroy the embryo.
Not needed. Dracula comes from frost-free tropical cloud forest.
Not as a germination treatment. In flasking, soaking is part of sterilisation: in one published method capsules were washed, soaked for 10 minutes in 0.6% sodium hypochlorite, dipped in 95% ethanol and rinsed in sterile water before the seed was spread on the medium.
Flasks are kept in a controlled growth room. Once out of the flask, keep plants cool: they come from cloud forest at roughly 1,000-2,000 m, and an experienced grower winters them at 8-12 °C (47-54 °F).
Seed is not buried. It is spread thinly over the surface of the medium with sterile tools.
A sterile nutrient agar medium such as Knudson or MS (Murashige and Skoog), sometimes enriched with coconut water, in sealed flasks.
The sealed flask holds near 100% humidity. After deflasking, roots must never dry out; keep air humidity above 60%, ideally 70-85%.
Flasks are kept under gentle artificial light. Adult plants need shade, with no direct sun on their thin leaves.
Slow. As an example from another orchid, Coelogyne nervosa seed germinated in about 67 days on MS medium, and the resulting plants flowered about two years after leaving the flask.
Take the seedlings out of the flask when they have roots and several leaves. Rinse the agar off gently and plant them in small groups (a compot) in fresh, pre-soaked sphagnum moss.
Move young plants into plastic mesh pots or wooden baskets with sphagnum, or a 1:1 mix of sphagnum and washed coconut chips. Draculas flower on stems that grow sideways or downwards, so solid pots trap the buds. Repot every year.
Keep the medium constantly moist with low-salt water (rain, RO or distilled), give steady air movement and keep humidity high. A cool, humid growing case or greenhouse works far better than a living room.
Draculas suit cool, misty hill climates. On the hot Indian plains they need an air-conditioned, humidified growing case; outdoors they rarely survive the heat.
Use fertilizer at very low strength, about 120-130 µS conductivity, every 3-4 weeks. Strong orchid feeds burn the roots.
D. simia can bloom in winter, spring and autumn. Each stem opens its flowers one after another, so leave healthy flower stems in place.
Nearly seven in ten Dracula species are at risk of extinction, partly from collection of wild plants. Start from seed, flasks or nursery-raised plants, never wild-collected ones.
Raise monkey face orchids in sterile flasks and grow them on cool, shaded and humid.
No. Orchid seed has no endosperm and cannot feed itself. It germinates only on a sterile nutrient medium in a flask, or with a compatible fungus in a laboratory.
Only where you can keep it cool and humid: in a cool hill climate, or in an air-conditioned growing case with high humidity on the plains. Heat and dry air stop it flowering.
Years rather than months. In a study of another orchid, flask-raised plants flowered about two years after leaving the flask; seed-to-flower takes longer still, so many growers buy older flasked or potted seedlings.