The Miltonia orchids are intermediate climate orchids. These orchids are found in its natural habitat in places like Brazil and to a lesser extent in Columbia and Ecuador as well where the Miltoniopsis orchid tends to thrive since they are slightly cooler-growing orchids.

When people talk about Miltonia orchids, they usually refer to both Miltonia and Miltoniopsis orchids. The reality is that these two types of orchids come from different places and have almost opposite requirements in temperature and light. People also use the nick name “pansy orchid” to refer to both Miltonia and Miltoniopsis, but in fact Miltonia species looks nothing like the garden flower pansy. Miltoniopsis is the one that look like the sweet-looking pansy.

Why the confusion? Because some time ago, these two orchids belong to the same genus, Miltonia. Growers distinguished the two by referring to the now Miltoniopsis as “cool-growing” or “Columbian” Miltonia, even though Miltoniopsis orchids are not necessarily cool growing nor from Columbia. Then one day, some taxonomists say, “Enough is enough!” and created the genus Miltoniopsis. But you think that solved the confusion problem? Nothing is that straightforward in the taxonomy world! After the separation, the hybrids between Miltoniopsis and Miltonia orchids retain the name Miltonia, even when some of them clearly have Miltoniopsis heritage and have the pansy appearance.

Miltonia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For many years growers used the name Miltonia to refer to those plants known as the 'cool growing' or 'Colombian' Miltonias. The other members of the genus, mostly from Brazil, were pretty much ignored. Now that the most well known and commonly grown plants have been reclassified to the genus Miltoniopsis, those other Miltonias, the Brazilian species, are left as the only Miltonias.