C. purpurata f. schusteriana - 5"

White Petals and an Ink-Stained Throat

Cattleya purpurata f. schusteriana is an uncommon color form of southern Brazil’s grandest coastal species, grown for its sharp, graphic contrast. The tall, single-leaved pseudobulbs push up strong flower sheaths in late spring, producing heavy blooms that command an entire bench.

The flowers open with broad, paper-white sepals and petals that frame an elongated trumpet lip lined in dark slate-blue to rich purple-violet. Deep within the throat, thin vein lines run together like fountain pen ink spreading across wet blotter paper.

The perfume alone makes bench space worth yielding, arriving in a surge of sweet anise and honey that fills the shade house by mid-morning. It is an unapologetic, full-sized grower that demands good light and honest air movement, but it repays that room with six-inch flowers that hold crisp for nearly a month. A true showpiece that never does anything quietly.

The Story of Cattleya purpurata

Cattleya purpurata (Lindl. & Paxton) Van den Berg 2008 lives in southern Brazil, hugging the coastal Atlantic forest belt through Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul at elevations from near sea level up to roughly one thousand feet. It grows as an epiphyte in the high canopy of coastal swamps and beach-adjacent woodlands, soaked by ocean humidity and subjected to a marked, cooler resting period in winter.

The species first surfaced in Europe through a collection sent by François Devos to the Belgian nursery of Ambroise Verschaffelt around 1847. John Lindley and Joseph Paxton published it in 1852 under Paxton's Flower Garden as Laelia purpurata, where it remained a cornerstone of the genus Laelia for more than a century and a half until modern DNA work transferred it to Cattleya. The specific forma name honors Schuster, an early European grower who flowered this slate-veined lip form.

The specific epithet purpurata simply means purpled, pointing to the deeply saturated wash on the labellum of the typical form.

In cultivation, Cattleya purpurata f. schusteriana grows with exceptional vigor once established, appreciating coarse potting media that lets its thick roots dry swiftly between soakings. The plants offered here are nursery-propagated, never wild-collected.

Quick Care Guide

• Light: Bright, filtered light. South or east exposure with light shading; target leaf color is a light olive to apple green.

• Water: Drench thoroughly, then allow the root zone to dry out almost completely before watering again.

• Temperature: Nights 55–60°F, days 65–80°F. A definite day-to-night temperature drop assists flower bud initiation.

• Fertilizer: Balanced orchid fertilizer weakly weekly during active vegetative growth in spring and summer, tapering off in late autumn.

• Mature size: Pseudobulbs and leaves reach sixteen to twenty-four inches in height; inflorescences carry three to seven blooms measuring five to eight inches across.