Species of the week: Dracula pholeodytes

Dracula pholeodytes is mostly tails. A thumbnail-sized maroon-speckled cup holds a pale monkey face; the three sepals taper off into caudae spanning 10–15 cm across three directions.

# Tails vs. petals

The long thin structures are caudae (singular cauda, “tail”) — tips of the sepals, not petals. Petals in Dracula are the two small lobes flanking the column inside the cup. IOSPE measures the whole flower at 1.5 × 6 in (3.75 × 15 cm); most of that 15 cm is cauda.¹

# The name

Pholeodytes = pholeos (cave) + dytes (diver). The monkey face sits deep inside the cup rather than at the front, as in simia, gigas or vampira. Cave-diver.

# Where from

NE Colombia, Boyacá department, eastern slope of the Andes. Not the Chocó. POWO gives the range as “NE. Colombia”.² Around 2,500 m. Cold-growing per IOSPE — cold, not cool.¹

Described by Luer & Escobar, Selbyana 7: 68 (1982),² four years after Luer split Dracula from Masdevallia.

# How mine got here

Ecuagenera, early 2023, as a small division on sphagnum. Took a year to settle. In a 10 cm black plastic basket in bark now, hanging in the lower right of the highland cabinet below the Heliamphora.

# Growing it

• 12–15 °C minimum at night. Above 18 °C it cooks.
• 85–98 % RH.
• Constant airflow.
• Rainwater or RO only; sphagnum never dries.
• Full shade.¹

No workaround without a refrigerated cabinet.

# Notes

• Several Dracula species look and smell like mushrooms and are pollinated by fungus-infesting flies. Endara, Grimaldi & Roy (2010) documented this for D. lafleurii.³ The labellum on pholeodytes looks gilled-mushroom-like too; no direct fieldwork on this species.
• “Monkey face” applies to the whole genus, not just simia. In pholeodytes the face sits further back in the cup — hence cave-diver.
• The eastern slope of the Colombian Andes exports far fewer orchids to cultivation than the Chocó on the Pacific side.

# Links

• POWO — distribution + authority.
• IOSPE — morphology + cultivation.
• Ecuagenera — source.
• Endara, Grimaldi & Roy (2010). Lankesteriana 10(1): 1–11 — open-access PDF.

Species of the week is a rolling series. Past entries under the species-of-the-week tag; per-species page with provenance + photos at /collection/species/dracula-pholeodytes/.