In the course of my ascension of Trois Frères Mountain, I had the opportunity to observe the following discreet orchid. I was mainly visiting the mountain in order to observe its population of Nepenthes pervillei but obviously I also longed to examine other groups of plants, especially orchids.
As I was walking along the Trois Frères trail, I was intrigued to see a quite a lot of terrestrial orchids rosettes (see end of this post) that were developing a frail flower scapes. Apparently, it was a bit too early to enjoy their flowers. Luckily I would be able to locate a couple of flowering specimens such as the ones below.
This orchid turned out to be Cynorkis fastigiata, a species I used to grow many years ago in my late large lowland terrarium. This deciduous, tuberous rooted, ground orchid develops one or two ovate to oblong or strap-like leaves that are easily recognizable. The mature specimens I found were only one-flowered but apparently, the species can produce a raceme with several flowers.
C. fastigiata favors dappled shade and occurs in forests, glacis where it grows in red-earthed soils. Indigenous in several Seychelles islands, this rather small orchid is also found in Madagascar, the Comoros, Mauritius and Reunion islands. Arguably, not the most spectacular orchid there is, C. fastigiata is a lovely plant that I would love to grow again one day. I remembered that it self pollinated, that it flowered readily and that it almost colonized the terrarium where I used to keep it. In sum, an easy grower. :-)
