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 ...

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...