Orchid Borealis

I purchased this plant as Pleurothallis crocodiliceps from Equaflor-a a couple years ago.  But it turned out to be P. vorator .  This species is endemic to Province of Nor Yungas , northern Bolivia (Luer 1989) and Zamora-Chinchipe Province , Ecuador (Jørgensen, P. M. and S. León-Yánez, 1999). The elevation range is 1000-3000m (Jørgensen et al. 2014) while Luer (1989) mentioned 2800m.  It seem to grow well at the cool-end of intermediate; max/min daily temperature of 29/18C (84/65F) in the summer and 21/13C (70/55F) in the winter. The flowers are fairly small relative the moderate size of the plant (about 6-8" height), but it is continuously in flower.  And when you look at the details of the flower, it is a delightful species. The taller leaves are a little reddish because they happened to be too close to the light. Luer and Vásquez described P. vorator in 1980 ( link to the original description).  The scary sounding species epithet, "vorator...

I originally got this plant in 2012 from Carter and Holmes Orchids.  This plant (item # 8932) is from 'Z4636' x '6615',  They noted the lineage of this plant; "This is our own superior version of this species with almost black markings. The parents of '6615' are 'Newport' x 'Bitter Chocolate' and 'Z4636' is from the Orchid Zone." I learned not to expect too much from this plant when I find a start of flower shoot.  The buds ended up blasting (the bud wilts before opening) for the first 4-5 times.  As the plant became bigger and bigger, the timing of the blast became later and later. It finally managed to open one flower last year (the flower didn't last more than a week, so I couldn't take photos).  So this is the second time to see the flowers, and this year, it shot up 3 buds.  The plant might prematurely initiate flowering, but it may realize later that it doesn't have enough resource.  So as the plant matures...

Happy New Year!  In Alaska, we have been enjoying unusually warm winter over the winter break, but the temperature has finally dropped to below -34C (-30F).  Playing outside isn't fun when it is this cold. I purchased this  Bulbophyllum lemniscatum fairly recently (spring 2018) from Tropical Exotique of Thailand (Manote Quahphanit), and this is its first bloom for me.  According to Parsons and Gerritsen (2013, p.188), this species is from Thailand, India, and Myanmar (elevation of about 400m). The unique feature of the flowers are the appendages of the sepals (I think each of dorsal and lateral sepals has one appendage).  This appendage moves around in a peculiar way with slight breeze.  My son noticed it from a distance, and he thought that there was a some creature in the orchid enclosure. There are several species in the  Bulbophyllum  section  Lemniscata , and two other species have similar appendages. The appendage of  ...