Orchid Borealis

I got this from Ecuagenera about 2 years ago. But it was mislabelled as Masdevallia melanoglossa . Well, these two species aren't similar to each other (other than similarity in the name), so I think they just screwed up at the packing stage. Mislabelling could be frustrating, but I don't really get upset too much. In this case, it got something interesting which I wouldn't have gotten intentionally, so I'm not complaining. Masdevallia melanoxantha seems to be somewhat similar to M. scobina . I try to use the key in Icones Pleurothallidianarum 19 by Carl Luer. But the differentiating feature of M. melanoxantha and M. scobina is a bit confusing to me. This is the key: M. scobina : Pedicels far exceeding the floral bracts; dorsal sepal thick, verrucose M. melanoxantha : Pedicels barely exceeding the floral brats; dorsal sepal slender, not verrucose. I'm showing the pedicel of my plant above.  The pedicel of mine seems to be longer than the flo...

This species is endemic to Sabah, Borneo.  It was described in 2001, and named after the discoverer, Mr. Mitsuru Sugiyama.  Dr. Tanaka's website has good information about the original description ( link ).  It is a rare species in nature according to the IUCN Red List report  from 2015. Although the flower is not showy by any means, I do like the subtle color and beautiful leaves. Close up of the staminodal shield. Yellow pollinium can be seen behind the stminodal shield. The petals gradually reflex backward over time.  It's a cool feature and it's kind of like the Spirit of Ecstasy  (well, this is probably a bit of stretch). The photo below is taken after 3-5 days of opening, and the petals are starting to curl back. This is after 8-10 days of opening. I think it will curl back more eventually. I got this plant recently (about 1 year ago) from Ooi Leng Sun .  It was a nice plant from the beginning, and started to grow r...

Benikomachi (紅小町, left), Benikida (紅木田 ,  right), and my son's friends. Dendrobium moniliforme is native to Japan ( link to distribution map ) and has been grown for a long time in Japan. Japanese common name is Sekkoku.  Some of them with desirable features are called Chouseiran (長生蘭), which translates to a "long-living orchid".  Technically, Chouseiran are the varieties which are formally registered with Nihon Chouseiran Rengoukai (日本長生蘭連合会), which roughly translates to Japan Chouseiran Association.  They publish yearly "ranking" (Meikan).  This means that you can't simply say that Chouseiran is the variegated forms of D. moniliforme . Cultivation of this species has been popular because there are large variations in variegation, plant sizes, flower shapes, flower color, and pseudobulb morphology among regions and cultivars.  Many of them are fairly easy to cultivate, and they are relatively affordable. The home I grew up had beautiful Ja...

I got this from Troy Meyers Conservatory: TN6953 , 'Blanco 3219' × self, Seed Donor: Mario Blanco, Pollination: Oct 2009. It is still a small plant, but it seems to flower freely. It is an easy grower, and I'm looking forward it to become bigger. Currently it is mounted on tree fern. This species is from Brazil.  

Wow, wow, wow!  I haven't had this much surprise and excitement from orchid flowers for a while!  There is only 1 more week of lectures this semester, and I get to have a break from teaching tomorrow due to SpringFest.  So I had a tiny bit of relaxed time thinking about the neglected orchids.  When I opened up the Corybas container which I haven't looked at for 3-4 weeks, there were two small, but superbly wacky flowers greeting me!  Indeed, I wasn't so hopeful that they were still alive.  The plants gradually became pale and faded away around the last Christmas, so I was assuming that they may be dead.  About 1-2 month ago, I did notice that some small leaf-like things were coming out among the carpet of moss, but I wasn't sure if it is the orchid or some weeds. Corybas geminigibbus is from Malaysia and Indonesia, and its habitat is mossy thick humus in montane forest.  In Peninsular Malaysia, it is reported to be abundant but only one loca...

Promenaea silvana is a delightful miniature species from Bahia, Brazil.  I got it from Ecuagenera .  While the plant is compact (about 4" tall, the pot is 2" diameter in the photo at the bottom), it produces fairly large flowers (about 1.5" natural spread) with gorgeous golden yellow. The photos are taken from 2 different blooming of the same plant; the front shot and the plant shot is from March 2016, and the others are from December 2015.  I didn't notice this when I was taking photos, but the flowers from March doesn't have the red bars on the mid lobe of the lip.  Interesting.  This is the first time with a large display.  After 1 month, the flowers are still in good shape. I'm growing it in cool-end of intermediate; max/min temperature is around 28/18C (82/65F) in the summer and 18/13C (65/55F) in winter.  Relative humidity is usually around 75-80%.  It's in fine bark:coarse perlite (sponge rock):sphagnum moss = 3:2:1 now.

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...