it is New Year’s Eve which means we have completed a second year of 365 days of orchids – an orchid that is in flower at the Orchid Project every day of the year. Look out for you chance to vote in ‘Orchid of the Year 2018’ which will be posted later today.

Cleisostoma is a lovely genus and plants have very diverse leaves but very similar flowers. The flowers all have their spurs protruding from their buds well before they open.

We found the similar species Cleisostoma teretifolium in Laos where it was quite common in open woodland around Paksong. (photo below)

Cleisostoma subulatum is a medium sized plant with long pendulous spikes of small flowers that open successively. The species is found from Sikkim in the Himalayas through South east Asia to Malaysia and the Philippines where it grows as an epiphyte in lowland forest up to 500m altutide.

We grow our cleisostomas mounted and in baskets and have found that Cleisostoma subulatum seems to grow and flower best when hanging from a basket. This suggests that it likes to be kept a little damper than the more terete leaved cleisostomas such as Cleisostoma arietinum that is also flowering in our Warm Asia section this week.

 Cleisostoma arietinum