Orchid Borealis

Bulbophyllum umbellatum appears to be somewhat uncommon in cultivation.  When you google it, you don't see many correctly identified photos of this species.  There is also some confusion about the name.  There used to be a species called Cirrhopetalum umbellatum .  Cirrhopetalum is now included in genus Bulbophyllum , and the current name for Cirrhopetalum umbellatum is Bulbophyllum longiflorum ( link to the photo in IOSPE ).  But some people are incorrectly calling them Bulbophyllum umbellatum . According to Flora of China , this species occurs in southern part of China, Bhutan, NE India, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam, and Taiwan at the elevation range of 1000-2200 m. I got my plant from Troy Meyers as a seedling about 5 years ago ( 'MC411' x self ).  The seeds were from Dale Border, so my plant is likely to be the offspring of plant in IOSPE, whose photo was taken by him.  I think this is the second blooming under my cultivation.  It ...

(The photos are from April 12, 2020) This species makes rather weird flowers.  The flowers are located at the base of pseudobulbs, so it is pretty difficult to take pictures of them.  Also, I took photos when the flowers were starting to wilt, so I couldn't get good photos.  But I made the dissection, so I'm posting the photos here.  I'll update with a better photos next time when it flowers.  But it is rather a slow grower; I've had it for 5 years (purchased in May 2015 from Far East Agriculture), and this is the first flower.  So I'm not sure when it will flower next. According to IOSPE (I didn't double check), this species is fairly wide spread; from India, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand at elevations of 0-1300m.  I have been growing it at 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 was growing it at PPFD of 70  µ mol m -2  s - ...

This plant flowered at the end of May.  The Covid-19 pandemic caused lots of changes for our lives (home-schooling a kid, canceled summer camps etc.), and I haven't gotten around posting this blog post until now.  Even thought it is expected that a new disease will pop up now and then, but I've never thought that we would experience the pandemic of such a large scale in our lifetime.  We shouldn't take this lightly since so many lives are lost, but it is a unique experience to learn how people and the society respond to pandemics. Going back to the plant, I noticed Bulbophyllum japonicum (Laos) listed in 2019 price-list of NT Orchids. B. japonicum is from Japan, Taiwan, and China, and I was skeptical that the distribution wouuld stretch to Laos.  So I had to get it to see what it it.  When the flowers opened in May 2020, it was obviously miss-identification.  Going through the orchid checklist of Laos (Schuiteman et al. 2008), I quickly learned t...

I purchased this plant as Bulbophyllum potamophilum  from Far East Agriculture in May 2017.  It is obviously incoorect when you compare it to the illustration on Orchids of New Guinea web site.  It matches well to the illustration of B. himantospealum .  Indeed, many photos of B. potamophilum on internet are actually from B. himantosepalum , and I haven't seen a single photo of correct B. potamophilum yet. It is a fairly recently described species (Vermeulen & Sieder 2015), and there isn't much information available. Since the original description is based on a plant cultivated at Universität Salzburg Botanical Garden , habitat information is not available, but it was supposed to be imported from Papua Province of New Guinea (i.e. Western half of Papua New Guinea). Orchids of New Guinea web site has the most information, and they states that it is cool growing.  However, I have been growing it fairly warm; max/min daily temperature is 27/18C (80/65F)...

Bulbophyllum tripudians from Tropical Exotique Bulbophyllum tripudians  belongs to Bulbophyllum   section Tripudianthes with about 11 species (Seidenfaden, 1979).  This small section is intermediate between section Pleiophyllus and section Cirrhopetalum .  Similar to section Pleiophyllus , the plants have two leaves per pseudobulb.  And the shape of the flower is somewhat similar to section Cirrhopetalum with large lateral sepals.  Most (all?) plants in section  Tripudianthes  are deciduous, and drop the leaves in the winter, and flowers in the winter or spring from the leaf-less pseudobulbs. Several species within this section are so similar that the correct identification is not easy without the details of flowers.  Indeed, I see many misidentified photos on the internet.  Furthermore, much confusion surrounded the naming history of species in this group. I illustrate a part of the confusion at the end of this post.  Se...