The Orchid Society of Great Britain

Draculas grow in cloud forest in a quite
restricted area ranging from Costa Rica to
Peru, with the vast majority coming from
Colombia. Draculas should be grown in open
baskets for a number of reasons: they don’t
like sitting in soggy composts, and many, but
by no means all of them, throw their spikes
from beneath the level of the compost.
Nearly 75% have horizontal to pendant
flower spikes whilst less than 25% have erect
ones, but even many of those have spikes
which arise from below the level of the
compost. Some of the more spectacular and
showy plants have been mounted on cork
bark, where they can send out spikes in all
directions, but they do need more attention
to maintain their moist atmosphere, and
therefore are difficult to take to shows etc.
There are no known species which enjoy
warm conditions, quite a number flourish in
intermediate rather than completely cool
ones, but it is necessary to check individual
species for their original habitat. They do like
a difference between night and daytime
temperatures, which isn’t easy to arrange in
summer.
A few hybrids have been raised, notably
Dracula Jester (D. platycrater x D. lotax), but
one early hybrid raised between what were
then two masdevallias (but one of which is
now a Dracula – D. chimera x Masd.
tovarensis) formed the first Dracuvallia -
Dracuvallia Eric.
In greenhouse cultivation, draculas have
proved to be quite promiscuous, with several
‘voluntary’ hybrids appearing when many
different species are in flower at the same
time, and other studies seem to show that
pleurothallids in general and draculas in
particular are among the very latest arrivals
in the evolutionary development of plants.
A Different Look at Dracula Names
Dracuvallia Eric painted by Nellie Roberts when
awarded an AM/RHS in 1902
OSGBJ 2010 (59), No. 4 • 255