Head in the cloud forest

Hello everyone,

I'm new to the orchid world and began keeping a few Pleurothallids in dart frog vivaria about 5 or so years ago. They never did well and always carried the stigma of finicky and temperamental, so I assumed it was typical. I'm in the amphibian conservation field and visited Panama in 2019 to assess some cloud forest sites for potential future translocations. This is where I caught myself looking for orchids as well as frogs!

Upon return, I wanted to try my hand at keeping a few species I had seen in Panama, especially Masdevallia erinacea. That's grown over the past few years and now I keep a variety of intermediate Pleurothallids in a terrarium, mostly Masdevallia. The terrarium limits the species I keep since it doesn't provide as drastic of a night time drop and I also have to keep power outages in mind and not have such sensitive species that won't handle our summers without air conditioning for a day or three.

Included are some pictures of my ever-growing collection and blooms I've gotten over the past two years.

 

Stelis mystax is correct! At the time it was my first of the genus, so I kept the photo labeling simple. I had some great advice from a grower in Kansas as far as species that will tolerate our temperatures in case of power outages.

The first picture is from the cloud forest around El Valle, Panama. At the time, I didn't know the species and it took me a while to track it down upon return since the blooms weren't open when I took the picture. Diodonopsis (Masdevallia) erinacea.

And a few others from the terrarium!