With fantastic drooping stems lined with apple green and white flowers, Angraecum eburneum is a large clumping orchid that bedazzles from mid-autumn across winter. A tender tropical evergreen perennial orchid native to the highly humid, moist forests of eastern Madagascar, the nearby southwestern Indian Ocean islands and eastern coastal Africa, its long flower parts are pollinated by hawk moths at night. The starry flowers with long "tails" gives rise to a common name of comet orchid. This epiphyte (growing upon another plant such as a tree) is sometimes found growing on moist rocks. It has slender pseudobulbs that elongate, topped with ten to fifteen light green to slightly yellow green leaves that are strap-like and leathery. Growth of roots and pseudobulbs is robust across the warmth of spring and summer. In early autumn very long stems that arch arise from the maturing leaf fans. Up to fifty small flowers line the stem, each being apple green with a ivory-white lip that is inverted so that it's on the top-side of the bloom. The petals are heavily waxy, long-lasting and dangle downward. The long nectar spur releases its fragrance at night, attracting the moth for pollination. Although growing year round in its sultry homeland, it undergoes a brief dormancy in very late winter after flowering ends. Grow this species of comet orchid in very bright light, ideally protected from intense midday sunrays in a frost-free garden. It does not grow in soil. Mount it upon a tree or palm trunk, wedge it in tree crotches for added stability. This large orchid also adapts nicely to being grown in a sturdy wood basket in coarse bark nuggets or mounted onto a hanging wood slab or tree fern plaque. High humidity and good air circulation are needed year round, and apply dilute fertilizer solution only when the orchid is actively growing. Use this splendid orchid as a large specimen in a tropical garden in a tree or hanging plant on the patio. Indoors it is best given very bright light, as in front of an eastern or western window diffused by a sheer curtain. If light levels are too low, usually indicated by leaves being deep/dark green, flowering may never occur. Increase the home humidity by placing the plant atop a pebble-filled tray with water. It is excellent for a warm greenhouse setting. The flower stems may be cut and used as a long-lasting bouquet. Two naturally occurring varieties are of note for orchid lovers to seek out and grow. Superbum has slightly larger, more robust flowers, while longicalcar has amazingly long nectary spurs that dangle down like a taproot. Found in Madagascar, the Mascarenes and Reunion as a large to giant sized, erect, hot growing monopodial epiphyte at elevations of sealevel to 750 meters with stout, branched stems carrying 10 to 15, rigid, coriaceous, ligulate, unequally bilobed apically leaves that blooms in the early winter in the northern hemispere, on an axillary, ascending or horizontal, to 4' [120 cm] long, densly many flowered inflorescence with long-lived, inverted or non-resupinate, fragrant, heavily waxy flowers arranged in 2 ranks. Grows hot in shade