Just wanted to give a few recommendations for small flowering plants and a couple of miniature orchids that I find do well in vivarium conditions and are great for adding a splash of colour.
First of all, Primulinia tamiana is the plant with the white flowers that have just a splash of pink/purple. It's fairly adaptable and can grow in really quite dry conditions as an epiphyte, or even rooted in fairly wet substrate. I mostly grow it mounted as an epiphyte but it readily produces seed and tiny plants will appear all over the place in any tank you add it to. Fortunately it doesn't grow quickly enough that I would really consider it a weed and any unwanted seedlings are easily removed. This plant stays small, comparable to miniature african violets, and within a matter of months it will be in bloom almost constantly. In one of the pictures you can see fresh blooms alongside older ones that are forming seed pods.
The second non orchid plant I want to recommend is Begonia bogneri which is the spindly looking bright green grass like plant you can see growing alongside my Pleurothallis alleni. It's not in bloom right now and I can't find any of my old pictures but it produces many small pink flowers on long stems. I simulate a wet and dry season in this tank and if it gets too dry the B. bogneri sometimes, but not always, dies back only to grow back from tubers once things get wetter again. It seems that humidity is more important for it than direct watering of the root system. In the wild it grows as a lithophyte on moss covered rocks in a very small locality of Madagascar but It grows just fine mounted on moss covered wood in my tanks and I feel that grass like plants help make a vivarium look really pleasingly natural - the nice flowers are a bonus.
A final non orchid that you can see is Anubias congensis with the broad flat green leaves. The flowers are white and a little boring but the plant is very hardy. It's rhizome sits ontop of the substrate and has an extremely extensive root system all throughout the drainage layer. I trim the leaves fairly regularly and they are quickly replaced by fresh ones growing up from the rhizome. It flowers often and I've been trying to get it to produce seeds but without any luck so far.
The orchids you can see here are Dendrobium laevifolium with the bright pink flowers and Pleurothallis alleni with the many narrow leaves on stalks. In my experience both of these miniature orchids do just fine without fans for active air circulation and produce nice blooms.
The P. alleni flowers don't tend to last very long but the blooms of D. laevifolium last a long time. D. laevoflium doesn't seem to like to dry out entirely between watering and misting but P. alleni seems able to handle drying out a little better. I grow both of them on decaying hardwood.
Both of them are extremely vulnerable to slugs and while only the flowers of P. alleni are eaten, slugs will absolutely decimate all parts of D laevifolium if given the opportunity. It's a very hardy orchid though and this one has bounced back just fine from several slug attacks.
First of all, Primulinia tamiana is the plant with the white flowers that have just a splash of pink/purple. It's fairly adaptable and can grow in really quite dry conditions as an epiphyte, or even rooted in fairly wet substrate. I mostly grow it mounted as an epiphyte but it readily produces seed and tiny plants will appear all over the place in any tank you add it to. Fortunately it doesn't grow quickly enough that I would really consider it a weed and any unwanted seedlings are easily removed. This plant stays small, comparable to miniature african violets, and within a matter of months it will be in bloom almost constantly. In one of the pictures you can see fresh blooms alongside older ones that are forming seed pods.
The second non orchid plant I want to recommend is Begonia bogneri which is the spindly looking bright green grass like plant you can see growing alongside my Pleurothallis alleni. It's not in bloom right now and I can't find any of my old pictures but it produces many small pink flowers on long stems. I simulate a wet and dry season in this tank and if it gets too dry the B. bogneri sometimes, but not always, dies back only to grow back from tubers once things get wetter again. It seems that humidity is more important for it than direct watering of the root system. In the wild it grows as a lithophyte on moss covered rocks in a very small locality of Madagascar but It grows just fine mounted on moss covered wood in my tanks and I feel that grass like plants help make a vivarium look really pleasingly natural - the nice flowers are a bonus.
A final non orchid that you can see is Anubias congensis with the broad flat green leaves. The flowers are white and a little boring but the plant is very hardy. It's rhizome sits ontop of the substrate and has an extremely extensive root system all throughout the drainage layer. I trim the leaves fairly regularly and they are quickly replaced by fresh ones growing up from the rhizome. It flowers often and I've been trying to get it to produce seeds but without any luck so far.
The orchids you can see here are Dendrobium laevifolium with the bright pink flowers and Pleurothallis alleni with the many narrow leaves on stalks. In my experience both of these miniature orchids do just fine without fans for active air circulation and produce nice blooms.
The P. alleni flowers don't tend to last very long but the blooms of D. laevifolium last a long time. D. laevoflium doesn't seem to like to dry out entirely between watering and misting but P. alleni seems able to handle drying out a little better. I grow both of them on decaying hardwood.
Both of them are extremely vulnerable to slugs and while only the flowers of P. alleni are eaten, slugs will absolutely decimate all parts of D laevifolium if given the opportunity. It's a very hardy orchid though and this one has bounced back just fine from several slug attacks.