Dracula chestertonii

By Marianna Max

 

Dracula chestertonii Draco - from Greek for fantastic lizard/dragon - ulus - from Latin - a diminutive suffix - so together they make Little Dragon or in the case of Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, son of the dragon. However in Romanian, Dracul means Devil so it is possible that the original Dracula was not little Dragon or Son of the Dragon but Son of the Devil. Which meaning was meant when the genus was named and did the genus name have anything to do with the later association of Dracula with Vampires in Bram Stoker's book? I wonder whether Dr. Luer had Dragons, Devils or Vampires in mind when he split off the genus from Masdevallia in 1978?

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Dracula chestertonii was first described by Reichenbach in 1883 under the genus Masdevallia and named for its discoverer J.H. Chesterton who died soon after its discovery - hmmmm.

Dracula chestertonii is listed as a cool to cold growing small species but mine seems to grow just fine at cool/intermediate temperatures. It comes from Colombia where is grows in deeply shaded moist forest ravines at elevations of 1800 2200 meters. For me, the hardest part about growing this orchid is keeping the blooms from blasting. I grow mine in a plastic net pot in sphagnum moss. Bloom spikes burrow through the sphag and come out of the net pot along the sides. As the spike gets further from the moist sphag it tends to dry too much in my periodically less than perfect humidity. In order to help keep local humidity higher around the zone where flowers form I placed Spanish moss all around the rim of the net pot and allowed it to hang in curtains below the plant. Using this method I have managed to get one flower to maturity so far. Hopefully many more will follow! I see more spikes.

Dracula chestertonii has a lip that looks a bit like a fungus or lichen of some sort. It also emits a “woodsy” or “mushroomy” odor that attracts its pollinator, a small fly that normally lays its eggs on fungus.