Cattleya labiata
The type species of Cattleya, a large-flowered unifoliate epiphyte from the humid hill forests (brejos de altitude) that sit like islands above the dry caatinga of north-eastern Brazil, mostly at 500–1100 m. It wants bright light, warm days with noticeably cooler nights, and a clear drier rest after flowering; in the wild it breaks new growth with the rains and flowers around February to April, while in northern-hemisphere cultivation it is the classic autumn-flowering cattleya.
Where it grows wild
Grows on trunks and branches of trees in humid montane forest patches on the serras of Ceará, ParaÃba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia, with a small outlying population in EspÃrito Santo. These forests catch orographic rain and mist while the surrounding lowlands are semi-arid. It also establishes on rock outcrops with very little soil. Plants sit high enough in the canopy to receive strong, broken light.
Portuguese Wikipedia gives 500–1000 m; our wild records span 0–1188 m with a median of 700 m (26 records with elevation), with specimens from 545 m in Ceará to 1062–1188 m at Fazenda Bituri, Pernambuco.
🔒 Growing it like that
The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
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Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY-SA 2.5 licence, unmodified.