Hi Royal,
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How do you grow this one? What were you doing wrong before that gave it trouble?
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I grow it cool (winter minimum 10 C), in half shade and with a dry rest, occasionally misting it. The thing with E. amplum is that the bulbs are widely spaced (up to 10 cm!) so in no time your plant runs off its mount or out of its pot. I used to repot or remount every few years, often also cutting the plant in half, to solve this problem.
I think now that it is better to leave the plant undisturbed as long as possible, so I grow it now in a large but very shallow (3 cm) basket, with lots of bulbs far outside the basket. These have their roots hanging free in the air, so in summer you need to spray/mist every day. Thanks to the shallow basket, the substrate in it still will be dry before evening. Once a week I soak the whole plant, basket and all, for a few minutes.
Root formation is rather irregular, new roots being formed both on new and some old bulbs, sometimes early but also sometimes late in summer. Aerial roots are mostly short (3-6 cm), and possibly provide the bulb with less water and nutrients than roots in a substrate, which is the reason that I will eventually have to 'rebasket' my plant.
In the wild I saw this species forming extensive mats on bare sandstone in Thailand (see link below), which seems to confirm the idea that a large undisturbed plant is the best way to grow this species.
Butterfly & Orchids Photo Gallery in Thailand - Epigeneium amplum - ???????????????/Epigeneium amplum
Jan
Epigeneium amplum surprise
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