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Species library › Maxillaria › Maxillaria aciantha
Orchids Partly documented

Maxillaria aciantha

A small, warm-growing epiphytic Maxillaria of lowland and foothill wet forest from southern Mexico to Bolivia. It wants steady warmth, high humidity, bright shade and year-round moisture with only a short, slightly drier spell in late winter.

Maxillaria aciantha
Photo: Francisco Emilio Roldán Velasco, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
At home, aim for
Day Warm-growingTargets in Plantistry
Night Close to the dayTargets in Plantistry
Humidity Humid airBand in Plantistry
Light Dappled lightDLI and PPFD in Plantistry
No rest periodGrows on trees (epiphyte)

Where it grows wild

Recorded mostly from lowland and foothill rainforest, with the bulk of records in Chiapas and Petén and a second cluster in Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Like most small Maxillaria it grows on trunks and branches in humid forest, here inferred from the genus rather than species-specific accounts.

Recorded from sea level to about 1,940 m, median around 320 m, so it is essentially a warm lowland species.

Mexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestBelizeGuatemalaHondurasNicaraguaCosta RicaPanamáColombiaPeruBoliviaBrazil North

🔒 Growing it like that

The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:

✓ Day and night temperature targets, and the limits it tolerates
✓ Humidity band, and how to hold it
✓ Light as DLI and PPFD for a grow light
✓ Wet and dry seasons, and whether to rest it
✓ Substrate and airflow
✓ A step-by-step setup to grow it like the wild

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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 4.0 licence, unmodified.