Aerangis mystacidii

I purchased three of these little darlings as small seedlings two years ago from Olympic Orchids. They all had cosmetic damage on their leaves so they were deeply discounted. I thought "Why not?!?" and bought them. I mounted all of them. Then I sold one at my local orchid society. The remaining two were kept on my growing shelves in front of a west facing window in the winter and under a shade tree in the summer. So far they have proven to be very temperature tolerant. I have grown them from 85F in the summer down to 48F degrees in the winter. Although I try to keep the humidity levels up, inside the house humidity averages around 50% most days. I try to water them every 2-5 days all year long. Most cultural notes recommend a slight winter rest. My version of a winter rest for this orchid is to decrease fertilizer and let it dry out completely between waterings, but not to allow it to stay dry too long. Regardless of the season, it is not allowed to stay dry more than 4 days.

It looks like my patience and hard works paid off with the first spike on the larger of the two seedlings. It took about 8 weeks for the spike to mature and the flowers to open. Aerangis mystacidii is a miniature African species in the Angraecoid alliance. Like other Angraecoids, it is fragrant at night. The fragrance is very light but it is there.

Six flowers on a small seedling is pretty good to me. However, a mature plant can carry up to 25 flowers on one spike. The flowers seem a bit small but that might improve as the plant matures. The flowers are cute and all, but the long spurs are what draws me in. These long spurs are common in Angraecoids and are specially adapted to suit their primary pollinator - a long-tongue hawk moth.

These blooms were definitely worth the wait. Hopefully, I am able to keep them happy and will get even more blooms next year!