Teagueia teaguei

Teagueia teaguei comes from the high Andes of northern Ecuador, Imbabura province, at 3000-3400 m. I've had this plant for around 3 years and this is its first blooming.

This plant has a well-deserved reputation for being difficult to grow. I have found it nearly impossible. It is completely intolerant of anything but very cold conditions. At around 18C as a daily high, new growths will abort. I nearly killed this plant after not keeping it cold enough for a very short time.

I grow this in my wine cooler, at the bottom in the coldest and most humid spot. After doing quite a bit of sleuthing online, using Wayqecha PE and Papallacta EC as templates, typical temperatures for a sub-paramo habitat at this elevation should be something like 15-16C max during the day, which is what I've programmed for my wine cooler. But this is the max -- most of the day it is much colder, around 10-12C. Nightly lows are around 4-5C.

At these temperatures, growth and flowering is very slow. I can expect maybe two leaves per year, and the flower spikes take around 6 months to mature. It is also very prone to bud blast, which can be frustrating with flowers that take so long to develop.

 

Most of my plants in the wine cooler grow very slowly, but I attribute this to the temps more than anything. There are a few cold growing Lepanthes that grow pretty fast in there though (quadricornis, ribes, scansor)

Regarding T. teaguei, I don’t think it is a twig epiphyte. Based on the few in situ photos I’ve seen, it seems to mostly grow on moss tufts on large trees and stumps, big shady branches in the understory, stuff like that, rather than exposed out on twigs.