Orchid Borealis

Utricularia blanchetii is found only in central Bahia , Brazil, and occurs in damp sand among rocks by streams (Taylor 1989).  The elevation range is 850-1750m.  This species belongs to section Aranella , in which 9 species are recognized, all from tropical South America with one species also occurs in Africa.  It is similar to  U. parthenopipes , which is also from Bahia, and often co-occur with U. blanchetii .  The lower lip (petal) of the corolla is supposed to be 10-15mm long, which is much longer than 4-6mm of  U. parthenopipes (Taylor 1989).  The lower lip of my plant is about 8-10mm, so it is a bit at the small end for U. blanchetii .  In addition to the flower size, the shapes of the upper lip and spur are different. Here is an excerpt of the Taylor's (1989) artificial key distinguishing these two similar species: Corolla 1cm long or longer; upper lip transversely oblong, c. 6mm wide; spur acute, somewhat longer than the lower lip --- U. blanchetii . Corolla less t

Paphiopedilum dayanum is named after a Victorian orchid grower and orchid painter, John Day.  It was discovered by Sir Hugh Low in 1856, and Day flowered it in 1860 (Cribb 1998).  The species has very small geographic distribution, and it has been only found on the lower slopes of Mount Kinabalu in Sabah, Borneo at the elevations of 300-1450m (Cribb 1998). The green/yellow tesselated leaves are beautiful, and the flower is pretty big (about 12 cm across).  I also think that the pattern on the backside of the lip/pouch is beautiful. I got this plant from Ooi Leng Sun.  I'm growing it in an intermediate condition; daily maximum and minimum temperature of 29/18C (85/65F) most of the year.  The light intensity (photosynthetic photon flux density, PPFD) is 220 µmol/m 2 /s (about 1500 footcandles) for 13 hours.  This is probably unnecessarily higher than what it needs. It is interesting that there are small horns at the bottom right and left of the staminode.  The illus

The first Arctic grayling of this trip. For Memorial day weekend, we decided to take our camper to our first camping trip of this summer.  We chose Nome Creek in BLM White Mountain National Recreational Area  as the destination.  This was the place where we tried Taiga's first tent camping in 2015, when he was 3 years old; we had a great time on contrary to our worru how he would do with tent camping.  This time we had the luxury of a camper, 1968 Fireball.  In the last month or so, Taiga has been interested in gold panning for some reason and watching YouTube videos.  Also he brought home his drawing of us gold-panning from school.  So we decided to try gold-panning at Nome Creek.  As an added bonus, the creek has nice Arctic graylings, and we can fly-fish there. The area has two official campgrounds, but many people just camp right next to the creek at the designated gold panning area.  After 1.5-2 hours of drive from Fairbanks on Steese Highway, we got onto the unpaved, bu