A medium sized, cool to warm growing, unifoliate, epiphyte and occasional lithophyte from Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and northern coastal Peru that is found at elevations of 10 to 1500 meters in seasonally dry, coastal forests with clavate, lightly complante, sulcate pseudobulbs subtended by several, imbricating, nonfoliaceous sheaths and a single, apical, oblong or narrowly elliptic-oblong, clasping, obtuse, minutely bilobed, thickly coriaceous leaf and blooms in the fall through the winter on a terminal, to 12" [30 cm] long, erect or arching, few to several flowered, racemose inflorescence arising on a mature pseudobulb subtended with a large, basal, elongate sheath from which arise 3 to 15, long-lived, fragrant, somewhat heavy textured flowers that are held just at or above leaf height. As a mountain plant, the short-pseudobulb C. maxima requires the normal cattleya night temperature of 58 F, and can take temperatures down to the low 50s without problems. The tall-pseudobulb C. maxima, however, grows near sea level, where night temperatures are in the high 60s F to low 70s F. To grow the tall-pseudobulb C. maxima well, the night temperature should not fall below 65 F, so you should put them in the warmest part of the intermediate greenhouse. Day temperatures for both types of C. maxima should be about 85 F. The upland C. maxima likes more sun than the lowland, but both grow best if their leaves are light green. Both forms also benefit from lots of moving air. The upland C. maxima often has some purple pigment in the foliage, while the lowland is normally just green. To enjoy the full size of the tall pseudobulbs of the lowland C. maxima, the plant must develop a good root system, and it will help to keep the plant slightly underpotted. I prefer to grow C. maxima in clay pots rather than on cork slabs, because the pseudobulbs seem to grow taller when grown in pots with the additional water they receive. Cattleya maxima should be repotted as soon as it makes new roots from the lead pseudobulb, and should be fertilized only when it is actively growing in the spring and summer. A.A. Chadwick.