Maxillaria coccinea "in situ"

This plant grows on the face of a boulder that is under the shade of a clump of sierra palms. It is at an altitude of 3,500 feet in a forested area that receives about 240 inches or rain every year. Local temperatures fluctuate from 75F in the day to 60F at night. On rare ocassions it goes down to the fifties. On very rare years temperatures might go all the way into the forties for a brief time. There are several large plants in a cluster growing lithopitically, the plants growing in the tree branches nearby are small and relatively scrawny in comparison. I returned to see this plant after an unusually dry spell had hit the forest and found that all the small seedlings under the plant had dissapeared, only the larger ones remained.

 

The root zone is constantly wet all the time. These photos were at the very height of the dry season as taking photos in this spot in the wet season in a difficult undertaking due to constant rain. There are brief spells during the year, in the middle of the dry season, where the whole area gets sligthly drier, but the roots under the big clump stay moist year round. Every few years there are periods where the area might experience drought, which in this place means that it is not raining every single day, day in and day out.