Orchid Borealis

This is a wonderful species!  It is a compact plant (leaf length of about 12cm and the inflorescence height of about 20-25cm at this moment), the undulated leaves are delicate looking and elegant with bright green color, and the flowers are fairly large.  Well, the flowers are probably not large compared to other tropical Calanthe , but my image of typical Calanthe is Japanese Calanthe (e.g. Calanthe discolor etc.), which was my first orchid I loved.  My grand father was growing a couple of them in our landscaped, Japanese style garden, and I always asked him to buy me some Calanthe whenever I saw them for sale. They didn't do so well since I wasn't so responsible when I was 10 year old or so.  After 30-some years, I finally have flowering Calanthe , but it is from Madagascar! This species grows in humid, ever-green forests.  It is endemic to Madagascar, but it is wide-spread, occurring from NE Madagascar,  Montagne d'Ambre (Ambre mountain), to...

Habenaria floribunda is a wide-spread species, occurring in Florida, West Indies, Mexico, Central America, all the way down to Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil (link to a world-wide distribution map ). It is one of the most common orchids in Florida ( distribution in florida ).  They grow in damp forest floor. In Florida, it is supposed to bloom in September up north and in February in south according to this site .  A blog post by Prem Subrahmanyam contains the photos of this species in their native habitat.  Some people say that the strong scent of this species is unpleasant.  But I agree with Prem, it is not a bad smell at all.  It is kind of "floral" smell, and similar to the smell inside of flower shop. Although it is wide-spread and fairly common, it doesn't seem to be a popular species among orchid growers.  But when you look at the detail of individual flowers, it is rather exotic (as with many species in genus Habenaria )! I got this plant from L...

Dendrobium sulphureum belongs to section Oxyglossum. Most species in this section are amazing miniatures that produce large flowers for the tiny plant body.  Many of us are captivated by them.  The bad news is that it is from mountain cloud forests of New Guinea, so it requires somewhat specialized environment.  Given the appropriate condition, it seems to be a rather robust plant even though they are tiny.  I haven't had this for long, and this is the first blooming. The contrast of the red lip and creamy white is stunning.  I got it in spring 2015 from Far East Agriculture Orchids.  The photos were taken in July 18, 2016, but the flowers opened in June, and the same flowers are still open in September, and they will last for a long time. I'm growing it with sphagnum moss in a clay pot under a cool condition (details at the bottom of  this post ).  It is getting fairly weak light for this species (photosynthetic photon flux density, PPF...

Summer in Alaska is gorgeous, but too short.  But the summer is gone, and the leaves are already turning yellow; we'll have a busy month to get ready for the winter.  We had unusually wet summer, and we didn't have to water our outside garden at all!  Also, we had almost no smoke from the forest fire, which is unusual. I received this plant in summer 2015 from Malala Orchids when Botanica Ltd  was organizing the group order.  Unfortunately, this was my first and last order from Malala.  Malala has been rescuing orchids from rapid destruction of the forests in Madagascar, and went through the trouble of getting permits to export legally and properly.  The owner of Malala, Michelle Andriamanamihaja, passed away earlier this year.  Here is a link to a nice post about this by Gilles Grunenwald in his awesome blog. This plant was labelled as Jumellea intricata .  But when it flowered, it was not the correct identification.  I attempte...