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Norfolk Island caterpillar orchid

Phreatia limenophylax

Norfolk Island caterpillar orchid
Photo: Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach, Public domain

Phreatia limenophylax is a small epiphytic orchid from wet tropical Pacific rainforests, growing on tree trunks and branches with fleshy fan-like leaves and tiny white flowers on a thin stem. It is a rare wild species and is not a common cultivated houseplant, so care knowledge is limited.

Family
Orchidaceae (Orchid family)
Grows as
Epiphyte, Orchid
Light
Bright indirect, Part shade
Water
Keep the roots evenly moist during active growth and let the top dry slightly between waterings, as is typical for epiphytic orchids.
Soil
Fast-draining epiphyte mix such as bark, perlite and sphagnum, or mounted on a slab of bark or cork.
Temperature
18–28 °C; protect below 15 °C
How easy
Hard
Native range
Solomon Is. to SW. Pacific, Norfolk I.
Climate
wet tropical

About

Phreatia limenophylax, commonly known as the Norfolk Island caterpillar orchid is a plant in the orchid family, an epiphyte with four to six fleshy, channelled leaves in a fan-like arrangement. A large number of tiny white flowers are arranged along a thin flowering stem. It grows on the Solomon Islands, Norfolk Island and other islands of the southwest Pacific Ocean.

Where it grows

Phreatia limenophylax usually grows on rainforest trees. It is found on the Solomon Islands, Norfolk Island, Fiji, New Caledonia, Samoa, Vanuatu and on Wallis and Futuna Islands. On Norfolk Island all five remaining specimens are found in the Mount Pitt section of the Norfolk Island National Park.

Other Phreatia plants

Plexaure crassiuscula · Phreatia listeri · Native fan orchid · White lace orchid · Lace Orchids · Lace Orchids

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Phreatia limenophylax 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.

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