Highland Cloud Forest Terrarium

70+ species live inside. See the plant grid →

A 1.5 × 0.6 × 1.1 m insulated acrylic enclosure in Genoa, Italy, that simulates highland cloud forest weather using real-time Colombian meteorological data (time-shifted 15 hours). Marine refrigeration drives nighttime temperatures to ~13.5 °C in a room at 22 °C. About 70 species (≈85 accessions counting clonal lines) coexist under the same regime — Heliamphora, highland Nepenthes, Dracula, Sophronitis, New Guinea Dendrobium, miniature Pleurothallidinae, and more.

Marine-fridge cabinet operational since 2022 (chiller-cooled predecessor running since 2016) · 32 signals logged every 60 s · historical envelope 13.5 – 24.3 °C and 75 – 98 % RH.

# Inside the cabinet

# The residents

A small selection of the genera hosted in the cabinet. Each links to its page with provenance, sources, and full photo grid.

• Heliamphoratepui sun pitchers
• DraculaAndean cloud-forest orchids
• Nepentheshighland tropical pitchers
• SophronitisBrazilian rock-dwelling miniatures
• DendrobiumNew Guinea highland orchids
• MasdevalliaAndean miniatures

# Sections

• Photos → — Chronological interior timeline, eight shots from foil-lined build stage to mature ecosystem
• Documentation → — Architecture, PID controller, InfluxDB schema, Node-RED flows
• Dashboard → — Grafana snapshot panels (mobile + desktop) and current conditions
• Live UI → — Near-live view of the Node-RED control panel, refreshed every 15 minutes
• Webcam — Live view inside the terrarium (coming soon)

# The paper

A multi-paper publication is in progress targeting HardwareX (full system), Carnivorous Plant Newsletter (CP horticulture), Orchids (popular orchid piece), and a comprehensive synthesis. Drafts in paper/ on the repo.

# Source code

All control flows, firmware, dashboards, and analysis scripts: GitHub repo — CERN-OHL-P-2.0 license.