This orchid flowers twice a year if we are lucky; a small flowering in Autumn and the main show in Spring. It’s tough and stays out on the South facing balcony unless it’s flowering, then it lasts for a long time indoors and has a beautiful vanilla scent. It is one of the Oncidium type, apparently a complex and uncertain genus. It likes bright light, with direct sun only early mornings if at all, and is happy with watering by rain, or a weekly watering if it’s dry. It is a big plant, getting a bit tight in a 30 cm pot, with broad strappy leaves and big pseudobulbs like fat mango seeds in shape. The flowers come from the lower leaf axils of the latest pseudobulbs.