Orchid Borealis

First Arctic Grayling of the season. It's the last day of March, and we were already fly-fishing this year!  This winter in Alaska was crazy warm; I feel that it was about 11C (20F) warmer than usual.  A little bit of warmth makes the winter life in Fairbanks Alaska much more enjoyable. But I do worry about suffering of the next generation and the earth due to the climate change. My son, Taiga, was feeling a bit sick last Friday, and he didn't want to go to school.  He was unusually quiet, but I promised him that we would go fishing if he wasn't sick over the weekend.  This encouraged him a little bit and he could handle the school.  Then he managed to recover next day!  I was planning to go ice-fishing, but Taiga wanted to bring fly-fishing gear and see if the ice is gone from Badger Slough.  This spot is great for kids to learn fly-fishing.  There is a wide-open area next to the stream, so they don't have to worry about snagging the back-cast.  It is catch-and

Porroglossum dalstroemii is endemic to mossy cloud forest of southern Ecuador (Province of Morona-Santiago ), altitude around 1800m (Luer 1987).  It is a cute minituare species with its leaf about 4-5cm long.  The flowers are small and not showy, but the sepals are all fused together and the shape is interesting.  I received my plant in December 2014 from Andy's Orchids, and it seems to be almost always in bloom.  It is an easy grower under my condition.  I'm growing it at the cool-end of intermediate; max/min daily temperature of 29/18C (84/65F) in the summer and 21/13C (70/55F) in the winter.  It seems to be ok in a fairly shady condition (PPFD of 55  µ mol m -2  s -1 ).. The flowers are upside-down compared to a typical orchid species, and the lip is located at the top side and the dorsal sepal is at the bottom.  This is called non-resupinate flowers ( link to Wikipedia about resupination). It is interesting that you can see that the ovaries are twisted to have non-res

I obtained this plant from Far East Agriculture about 2 years ago, and this is the first blooming.  I love the cheerful color combination of pink and yellow.  According to IOSPE , this species is from Sulawesi, the Moluccas and New Guinea. Here is a link to information about this species, and the elevation range is supposed to be from 1300-1900m. I'm growing it at the cool-end of intermediate; max/min daily temperature of 29/18C (84/65F) in the summer and 21/13C (70/55F) in the winter.  It isn't a fast grower for me. It happened to be my birthday.  Even though it was one hour shorter due to the time change, I spent nice time with my family.  We went to Ester jam to play old-time music in the afternoon.  Well, I probably played only a couple tunes, but it is nice to play music with friends. During the jam, Taiga wanted to play outside, so we played soccer under warm sunshine for a while, and then played a treasure hunt (we buried the soccer ball under snow, and