Orchid Borealis

Habenaria repens is a widely distributed species, from the Southeastern United States, Central America, the Carribean and the majority of South America ( link to a distribution map, some of these are not within the native range).  Within the US, it occurs in the coastal states from North Carolina to Texas ( link to the occurrence map). This species grows in moist area, and it can grow as a semi-aquatic plants, growing on floating mats on ponds (Hunt 1943).  As an interesting side note, a phenolic compound, called habenariol , has been extracted from this species and its antioxidant activity has been reported (Johnson et al. 1999).  It turned out that this compound is a feeding deterrent against the freshwater omnivorous crayfish, Procambarus clarkii .  It is interesting that people used to think that herbivory wouldn't be a big problem for aquatic plants, but this example shows that this orchid has evolved the counter-measure against herbivory. From a dist...

I recently got the tuber of this species in May 2016 from Louisiana Orchid Connection (LOC) when we were visiting Redland International Orchid Festival .  It was labelled as W-3940, 50116, and LOC imported it from Madagascar in May 2016.  It was a large, healthy tuber.  It was left as a bare tuber for a month (I didn't have time to plant it), and it was kept dry (probably sprinkled a little bit of water ever other week) in the summer time.  Around the end of August (Aug. 20), it started to send the leaf up, and it started to open flowers in mid October.  So I don't know much about the cultivation of this species yet.  But the yellow and green flowers are so pretty, so I decided to post it.  I'll update the post as I learn more about this species, but for now, I'm posting a couple photos. Cynorkis flexuosa appears to be fairly wide-spread in Madagascar. It appears that many of the herbarium records are from 500-1000m of elevation.  So I...

Cynorkis angustipetala may sound like an esoteric species, but it is a relatively available species.  Due to some nomenclature confusions (I attempted to summarize them below), C. angustipetala may be sold as C. guttata or C. uncinata .  Well, I admit genus Cynorkis is not as popular as other orchids such as Paphiopedilum , but there are quite a few of us who get excited by them, and this is relatively popular within the genus due to the large display. Cynorkis  is a fairly large genus with more than 150 mostly terrestrial or lithophytic species.  The genus name means dog's balls; I mean testicles, not the slobbery tennis balls for fetch.  Hmmm, I guess they imagined that the tubers look like the testicles.  Madagascar is the center of the diversity in this group, with about 120 species, which are mostly endemic to Madagascar (Hermans 2009).   Cynorkis angustipetala  is also endemic to Madagascar, and its habitat is terrestrial in r...

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...

Happy New Year to all! There were lots of positive aspects of my 2015, but I can't say that it was my best year for me in many aspects.  With orchids, I became obsessed with getting rid of the bush snails (hopefully I can write about what I learned from reviewing snail literatures some day).  I tried bunch of chemicals, and there were quite a bit of casualties ( Phalaenopsis species were most influenced by this).  I'm guessing that it was probably less harmful if I didn't declare the war against those tough guys.  Oh well.  I'm hoping that 2016 will be a better year.  Indeed, there are quite a few interesting orchids (to me) which are starting to grow or flower now. This one is imported as Cynorkis lilacina from Malala via Botanica Ltd. in July 2015. But after talking to two knowledgeable friends, it appears to be miss-identified.  They both suggested that it could be C. baronii .   By looking at photos, there is also some similarity to...

Pecteilis radiata grows in Japan, Korea, and China.  The common name for this species is Sagi-sou (egret plant) in Japan. I have always admired this amazing species, and I finally decided to give it a try.  I got bulbs from Seed-Engei in spring 2015, so this is my first year growing this species.  The one I have is a variegated variety, Ginga (銀河, which means "galaxy"), which has marginal white stripes (Fukurin).  There are quite a few cultivar varieties, and this web site lists quite a few of them (in Japanese). It is supposed to require lots of  sun light, so I grew them outside in Fairbanks, AK.  Around September, when the daily low started to hit around 1.7C (35F), I decided to bring them inside under an artificial light.  Then suddenly, they started to shoot up the flowers!  I think Fairbanks summer (USDA Zone 2a) is a little too cold for their liking, so the flowering is significantly delayed.  In Japan, they are supposed to bloom...