{"id":477,"date":"2009-03-25T10:06:02","date_gmt":"2009-03-25T18:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/25\/dracula\/"},"modified":"2009-12-23T19:30:19","modified_gmt":"2009-12-24T03:30:19","slug":"dracula","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/25\/dracula\/","title":{"rendered":"Dracula"},"content":{"rendered":"

No, this Dracula orchid doesn’t bite your neck or sleep in a coffin, but this miniature is interesting in its own right. Dracula means “little dragon” in Latin, and the botanist who named this genus thought that the flowers looked like dragon’s teeth. I think they look more like orange bells, but I’m grateful for an orchid rarity: an easy to pronounce name. Like their Masdevallia<\/a> relatives, Draculas like cool temperatures<\/a>, low light<\/a>, high humidity, and constant air movement<\/a>, similar to their homes high in the Andes.<\/p>\n

\"Dracula<\/a>\"Dracula<\/a>\"Dracula<\/a><\/p>\n

This particular species is called Dracula sodiroi, and comes from the mountains of Ecuador, not Transylvania. It needs daily water<\/a>, and sulks from the added chemicals of regular tap water. Even San Francisco’s high quality, clean tap water isn’t pure enough, so I use rainwater or filtered water instead. The flowers are pendant, hanging down so they open from below. Looking up from underneath, they look furry on the inside.<\/p>\n

\"Dracula<\/a>\"Dracula<\/a>\"Dracula<\/a><\/p>\n

This orchid does bear some similarity to vampires with its dislike of direct sun. Draculas want shady conditions, and can even be grown under artificial lights, but I keep mine outside where it can enjoy the fog. While I doubt that Anne Rice will be writing books about this orchid to be made into movies starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, it’s a fascinating Dracula nonetheless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No, this Dracula orchid doesn’t bite your neck or sleep in a coffin, but this miniature is interesting in its own right. Dracula means “little dragon” in Latin, and the botanist who named this genus thought that the flowers looked like dragon’s teeth. I think they look more like orange bells, but I’m grateful for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3,19,6,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cool-growers","category-growing","category-mini-orchids","category-photos","category-watering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5128,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477\/revisions\/5128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}