Bulbophyllum (echinolabium x phalaenopsis)

I brought this plant a few years ago from Carter and Holmes.  It has been growing slowly, at least when compared with my other Bulbophyllum.  The flower is richly colored and the stink it produces is faint when compared with the sheer revolting and powerful smell that issues from the parent species.  I will repot it when it finishes blooming to a basket to see if this helps the plant grow larger.

Bulbophyllum Grace Thoms (Bulb. echinolabium x Bulb. paluense)

I brought this plant about three years ago as a three bulb division.    Initially, the plant didn’t had much by the way of roots so growth was slow.   After the first new growth produced roots the plant grew better, with larger growths.   However it didn’t bloom until the plant had accumulated several large and plump pseudobulbs.  

The inflorescences are wiry and I didn’t notice them at first.   The inflorescences in my plant open their flowers sequentially, having just one flower open at a time.  The flowers are large and striking, you can easily see the echinolabium parent influence in them.

This plant is cultivated in a relatively small pot, about five inches wide, in bark with some Styrofoam peanuts in the bottom of the pot to aid drainage.  The plant gets watered twice a week when it is in full growth and it has not rained in the previous few days.  When it is not in its growth phase it can go one or two weeks without watering with no sign of distress.  But when it is producing pseudobulbs I don’t allow it to go bone dry.

The plant get full sun for about two hours early in the morning and then sunlight filtered through the canopy of tall trees.    During part of the year the sun comes up in a gap between two large trees this means that the plants get more hours of direct sunlight early in the morning.  They have shown no ill effects due to the increased light exposure.  

 

I have not been able to detect any fragrance from the flowers.  However the flowers are attracting the local flies, so it is probably producing at least some fragrance, probably with a distinct fecal smell.   I found one fly stuck to the fluid in the stigmatic cavity.  I released it and it fled with alacrity.  Other flies were seen in the vicinity but so far only one has become trapped.

Bulbophyllum Manchind (mandibulare x echinolabium)

Photographed at the 2014 Ponce orchid society show, Ponce, Puerto Rico.

Bulbophyllum A-Doribil Upwind

This hybrid has achieved something that I thought was not a posibility, it almost made me puke.  Make no mistake, I am not easily grossed out, for a time I worked in a lab and did necropsies of such delightful things as rats, toads, sharks and even more loathsome things.  This hybrid between Bulbophyllum basisetum x Bulbophyllum echinolabium, really packs an odoriferous punch.  Its foul odor is among the most appalling I have had the misfortune to experience.

Bulbophyllum echinolabium J.J. Sm. 1934, a plant product of the cross of two selected clones

The flowers of Bulbophyllum echinolabium are among the largest of the genus Bulbophyllum.   This orchid appears regularly at orchid shows in the island, usually represented by one or two plants.  I the past I have not been interested in this plant, mainly because I didn’t like the color of the flowers.  Those plants that I had seen had flowers with muddy yellowish colors that I found unappealing.  But this plant I saw at the 2013 Mayaguez orchid festival changed my opinion.  Not only the flower is large and well-presented but the color (at least in my view) is much nicer than I had seen previously.  This plant is the product of a cross of two selected clones.  Unfortunately I forgot to write down the names of the parents of this particular plant.   But for now on I will be on the lookout for plants product of crosses of superior parents.