Orchid Borealis

I received this plant as a small seedling from Olympic Orchids 10 years ago.  This species recycles old flowering stalk, so new flowering branches are added to the old ones.  It was growing in an area where many orchids were forming a tangled mess.  I had to re-pot it, and during the process of extraction, I probably lost 30-40% of buds (broke a couple branches). Phalaenopsis mariae is from Philippines (Luzon, Mindoro, Mindanao, and Sulu-Archipelago) and north eastern tip of Borneo Island, growing under 600m of elevation.  It seems to do well under an intermediate temperature, and moderate amount of light. Dissected flower.  The scale below is mm.  The right petal, dorsal sepal, and right lateral sepal are showing the adaxial sufrace (i.e., the side facing front of the flower opposite of the stem).  The abaxial surface (closer to the stem, back-side) is shown for the left petal and lateral sepal. The Lip before the removal of the side-lobes.  It ...

My orchid room gets filled with wonderful fragrance every year around May, and the fragrance intensifies in the evening.  We were away for 10 days at the end of May this year, so we missed quite a bit of this experience, but there are still some Vanda (Neofinetia) falcata blooming in the mid-June.    This variety, 高隈 (Takakuma), has white tiger variegation, and the pattern is fairy fuzzy (i.e. the borders of white and green parts are not sharply defined).  You might be wondering why this is "white" variegation since the variegation in the photo shows more yellowish patches.  But they are whiter in the new leaves and as the leaves become older, the variegation either disappears and/or becomes yellowish.  Most leaves on this plant are from last year or earlier, so you don't see the new leaves with white variegation in the photo.  Horiuchi (1995) mentioned that it would retain the beautiful variegation longer if it is grown under more shady condition, bu...

Happy New Year!  I was a bit busy, and didn't manage to update this blog for a while. The species is endemic to north and central Taiwan (Lin 1975, Wu et al. 2010).  Su (1975) mentioned that it is usually found on branches of Quercus spp (oaks). In nature, it flowers in December to February ( Flora of China ), which matches with the flowering time under my cultivation. The illustration is available here .  The elevation range is 1000-2000m ( Flora of China ), 1500-2000m (Su 1975), 1500-2300m (Lin 1975, Wu et al. 2010).  Accordingly, it has been growing well under a cool-end of intermediate temperature; the max/min daily temperature is 29/18C (84/65F) in the summer and 21/13C (70/55F) in the winter.  I am growing it under a moderate amount of light (180-190 µmol/m^2/s with Apogee SQ-520 quantum sensor).  My plant originally came from Andy's Orchids as Ascocentrum pumilum .  It is a lovely miniature species with the leaf length of about 4-5cm. ...

This variety, 御城覆輪 (Gojou-fukurin),  is a medium sized  Vanda  ( Neofinetia )  falcata .  The leaves are relatively straight and does not curve down too much, so the leaves look spreading up.  Because of this leaf shape, it gives an impression of masculine beauty.  The color of marginal variegation is white, but there are some variations, probably due to the culture.  It has Doro-jiku (brown/purple stem/base of the leaves), and the tips of the roots are green (Ao-ne).  Tenkei-fukurin (天恵覆輪), derived from Gojou-fukurin, has yellow fukurin and the width of the variegation is generally wider (i.e. the green part seems to be narrower).  Gekkeikan (月桂冠) is also derived from Gojou-fukurin and the newer leaves have white fukurin, but becomes yellow as the leaves age.  There is also a rare variety, Tenjou-nishiki (天城錦), derived from Tenkei-fukurin, and it has small, needle (narrow) leaves. This is a fairly old variety, discovered mor...

Hymenorchis javanica is endemic to western Java at elevations of 900-1000m (Parsons & Gerritsen 2013, p.518-819).  It is a tiny plant (leaf length is about 2cm), but it gives a disproportionately large display of crystalline flowers.  The flowers are jewel-like especially with a little bit of back light. This plant is originally from Ooi Leng Sun.  But I purchased it from another person in June 2014, and he accidentally shipped the plants via USPS First Class (current USPS Retail Ground) instead of USPS Priority.  USPS Priority takes only 3-4 days for the delivery to Alaska, but USPS First Class can take a long time.  The First Class packages usually (but not always) get shipped to Federal Way, Washington, and then they travel to Alaska via a boat.  So it took 16 days.  Some of the orchids were dead on arrival, but majority of them were highly stressed and I lost many of them subsequently.  I wasn't sure if this one is going to make, but i...

Schoenorchis tixieri is from 900 -1400m from  S. Yunnan and Vietnam (Xinqi and Wood 2009). I was told that mine is Chinese origin, so mine might be from S. Yunnan, but I don't know the detailed history. From looking at the flower of my plants with 10x loupe, I can't tell the difference from S. fragrans .  Unfortunately, I killed my S. fragrans , and I didn't take photos when it flowered, so I have been gazing photos in Flickr and from google image search.  I should mention that there are lots of misidentified S. seidenfadenii  labelled as S. fragrans .  These two species are relatively easy to tell if you look at the callus shape and the angle of the spur.  Seidenfaden (1988, p.66-69) discussed the difference, and here is the key to differentiate them: Epichile of lip with two low rounded calli besides each other, separated by a cleft. Spur in obtuse angle to epichile .... S. seidenfadenii Epichile with a single large semi globular callus. Spur in a ...

I got this as  Gastrochilus obliquus TW-2087 from Louisiana Orchid Connection.  It was blooming around January 1, 2016, but this is another one I forgot to post.  It seems to be a steady grower and bloomer in an intermediate condition.  Since the flowers are below the leaves, it is kind of difficult to get nice photos. By comparing with other photos, I noticed that mine seems to have less red coloration at the base of the column.

I haven't posted a blog post for a long time; it has been hellish with work...  But spring is here!  We are finally going to say bye-bye to snow, which should be gone in a couple days around here!  This winter and spring was extremely warm for us. I'm excited to finally see this little guy flowering!  It is similar to Phalaenopsis lobbii.  I think the flower is supposed to be quite a bit smaller than P. lobbii .  I've had this plant for about 3-4 years.  It has been sending out the flower shoots every year, but it has never completed flowering.  Usually, it makes 2-3 flower shoots, but it doesn't develop flower buds, and the shoot become yellow in the summer time.  It produced two shoots this year, and opened only 1 flower, but better than nothing!  I'm guessing that it may want to have more seasonality, but I didn't do anything special this year.  So I still  don't know why it managed to flower this year. This species wa...