I am sure most of you would prefer not to have spiders crawling around in your home, but I think you might really like my spiders because they are very special.

If you are a regular visitor to my pages, you know by now that I have some strange and wonderful things in my greenhouse - things like Moths, Dancing Dolls, Slippers and even Sticks, so having spiders is not really strange for me. The spiders that live in my greenhouse are the beautiful and very fragrant Brassia orchids.
The Brassia genus was established in 1813 by Robert Brown in honour of William Brass, the botanical illustrator for Sir Joseph Banks. There are approximately 20 Brassia species found throughout tropical America.

They have been called the "Spider Orchids" every since their discovery due to the shape of their flowers. The long, slender sepals and petals stretch out like spider's legs. The lip often looks like the body of the spider. The artistic rendition of Brassia verrucosa shown here is a good example how spider-like Brassia flowers can be.

A long Brassia inflorescence (flower spike) bursting with blooms looks like rows of spiders crawling through the air. The blooms are usually very fragrant.

When my Brassias are in bloom, you can smell them all over the greenhouse.

Brassia caudata blooms in the fall forming flower spikes over 15" long and blossoms up to 8" in size. This is quite a spike to see!

In summer and fall, Brassia lanceana should be in full bloom. Other favorites in my greenhouse are Brassia verrucosa, Brassia maculata, Brassia arcugera, Brassia signata, and Brassia warszewiczii.

The largest Brassia species is Brassia gireoudiana which has blossoms up to 20" from the top of their dorsal sepal to the bottom of their petals. The blossoms have yellow to green sepals and petals which are spotted and barred with brown.
The plants can get quite large, up to 5 feet and have over a hundred blossoms on many flower spikes.

There are currently many beautiful hybrid crosses because growers often use Brassias to obtain the large exotic spider-looking flowers.

Brassia crossed with Miltonia is called 'Miltassia' and Brassia crossed with Miltonia and again with an Oncidium results in the hybrid called 'Aliceara.'

There are also many beautiful hybrids being grown now, such as Brassia Edvah Loo "Hellis" AM/AOS at left and Brassia Huygo shown below.

Other beautiful hybrids of Brassia Rex are also outstanding, such as Brassia Rex 'Sakata' AM/AOS.
Brassias are fairly easy to grow and bloom. Most will do well even sitting on a sunny windowsill.

You should provide temperatures of 65 to 75 °F degrees (18-21 °C) during the day and 55 to 60 degrees (13-16 °C) at night.

Supply plenty of humidity (50% to 70%) during their active growth period, which is when they are growing new pseudobulbs and starting to produce their new inflorescence.
Brassias have large flat pseudobulbs with two or three large leaves. Inflorescences are produced from the sheaths at the base of each new pseudobulb.

Keep moist but not wet, do not let them dry out during their growing season, which differs according to the species, or hybrid.

At this time do not apply fertilizer, and lower the day and night temperatures by 10 to 15 degrees.

Your Brassias should be mounted on cork bark or potted using a mixture of medium-grade potting mix, 1 part perlite, 1 part coarse peat moss and 1 part charcoal.

Propagate by division keeping at least three to four pseudobulbs per division. Keep in mind many species of Brassias can grow to very large size (3 to 5 feet tall), so before you buy, make sure you have the room for them. There are other orchids that have the nickname of "Spider Orchids."

If you would like to explore them, I am sure you will find them all very interesting.

Brassia hybrid 'Edwah Loo'

   In closing, let's take a lateral arabesque here. Orchids placed into the Brassia genus are close to members of the Ada genus, dedicated to Ada Byron, sister of the famous poet and, perhaps more importantly but much less known, genial mathematician.

   The morphological differences between members of the two genera are pertaining to the vegetative structures (Brassia species by-and-large have less prominent pseudobulbs), the labium of the Ada species is is somewhat reflexed and at its base there is a bilamellate basal callus terminated in two, tooth-like protrusions.

   Having said so, see below Ada keiliana (Reichenbach f. ex Lindley) N.V. Williams (1972.) also known as Brassia keiliana Reichenbach f. ex Lindley (1852.), Oncidium keilianum Reichenbach f. ex Lindley Reichenbach f. (1863.), Brassia cinnamomea Linden ex Lindley (1854.) Brassia havanensis Lindley (1854.) and, hopefully at last (?) Brassia keiliana var. tristis Reichenbach f. (1863.)

Ada keiliana (Reichenbach f. ex Lindley) N.V. Williams (1972.)

   Call it as you wish, this orchid occurs from Colombia to Guayana.

   From the the ping-pong match played with its identity by Reichenbach f., J. Lindley, J.-J. Linden and N.V. Williams it can be assessed that lots of this orchid were sailed to Europe around the middle of the XIXth century via the harbor of Ciudad La Habana, Cuba and, pehaps more importantly for orchid fans, the flowers cheerfully emit a decent cinnamon scent - even if they are produced on the arching, pendulous inforescences of the form distinguished for this reason of perhaps cosmical importance by H. G. Reichenbach f. as var. tristis ("sorrowful" in English).