Brassavola appendiculata

Brassavola appendiculata, the type species that gave this entire genus its name, is a spidery, fringe-lipped orchid collectors seek out precisely because it isn't the more common B. nodosa.

Its narrow, pencil-like leaves lead to a solitary flower with a long, tapered, deeply fringed lip — pale green to white and unmistakably its own. Like its Brassavola cousins, it saves its sweet, citrus-like fragrance for after dark, when night-flying moths are on the wing.

Native from Mexico south through Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, this species grows as an epiphyte or lithophyte in seasonally dry tropical forest, so it takes a real dry season without complaint.

In Florida culture, give it bright light, a mount or an open basket, and let the roots dry fully between waterings — it resents sitting wet. Intermediate to warm temperatures suit it well.

Blooming size, fragrant, and genuinely uncommon in cultivation — a conversation-piece species for the collector who already has the easy ones.