Cyrtosia javanica is a rare, leafless, mycoheterotrophic orchid from tropical Asia that gets its nutrition from fungi in the soil rather than from light, so it cannot be grown as a normal garden or houseplant. It is not a plant to buy and grow at home; care here is about leaving wild populations undisturbed.
Family
Orchidaceae (Orchid family)
Grows as
Orchid
Soil
Forest leaf litter and humus rich in the fungi it partners with; it cannot be grown in ordinary potting mix.
Temperature
Wet tropical lowland and montane forest conditions; exact tolerances are not well documented.
How easy
Hard
Native range
Trop. Asia
Climate
wet tropical
About
Cyrtosia javanica is a rare, mycoheterotrophic orchid from the Vanilloideae subfamily. It is native to tropical Asia, specifically in Assam, the Bismarck Archipelago, Borneo, Cambodia, the Eastern Himalayas, Java, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Guinea, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatra, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.
Cyrtosia taiwanica has been mistaken for Cyrtosia javanica, leading to the latter being thought to have originated from Taiwan.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cyrtosia javanica by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.