Dendrobium culture: Observations on the color of the mature canes in some Dendrobium species when exposed to strong light

Many Dendrobium need high light to bloom at their best, but the way they respond to it varies depending on the species.  My Den. nobile blooms with larger flowers with richer color when the canes are getting so much sun that they take a yellowish tint.   On the other hand, the Dendrobium primulinum from Laos produces larger flowers when the canes are exposed to full sun and turn purple.    Den anosmum doesn’t change color too much even when exposed to full sun, perhaps the canes are just a bit lighter green color.  I haven’t noticed a color change in the canes of Den devonianum, but the flowers of my plant which is exposed to full sun for hours in the morning show very pale color in the sepals and petals, so pale that it can make one think the flowers are not of devonianum unless one looks closely.  My newly acquired plant of Dendrobium ceraula shows a deep purple tint on the side of the cane that receives the sun and green on the side that is under the shade of the leaves.  In my experience Dendrobium cucullatum becomes yellowish and stunted if exposed to too much sun.   

Dendrobium culture: Dendrobium Mentor 2023 growing season

 

This Dendrobium is a hybrid of Den primulinum and Den anosmum.  This plant is from a remake, the original hybrid was made in 1893.   This plant is attached to the bottom of a custom-made wire basket.  As you must have noted from my posts on orchid culture, I prefer to grow these pendent orchids attached to the bottom of wire baskets.   I do this because when these plants become larger the canes tend to outweigh the pot many times, even when potted in a heavy terracotta pot.  As a result the pots lean to the side, making watering and fertilizer more difficult than usual.   Also these plants are heavy feeders which tends to deteriorate the potting material at an accelerated pace in a pot.  In a wire basket the media stays sopping wet for only brief moments with helps control the bacteria and fungi that destroy potting material.

My plant of Dendrobium Mentor tends to favor the primulinum parent in regards to plant form.  The canes grow almost horizontal, in the direction of the strongest light, until they grow to a size that makes their weight force them into a vertical alignment.   My plant needs heavy fertilizing during the growing season and daily watering to get the best rate of growth.  It also needs strong light.  I have it in a place where it gets full sunlight for a few hours each day between 8 am and 11 am.   In primulinum, the best flowers I have seen were in canes that were exposed to so much sunlight that they were purple.    At this moment, in August, the plant is about halfway to its final size which it will reach December.

 My Dendrobium anosmum plants shed their leaves in December.  I have not paid attention to when Dendrobium Mentor becomes deciduous.  In my garden, this orchid blooms in March or April.  I was slightly disappointed that the two adult canes of my plant bloomed at slightly different times in 2023.  This year the plant has three canes that have the potential to reach blooming size.  The best outcome will be for the to open their flowers all at the same time.  This orchid produces a single flower from each flowering node.

 Den Mentor is fragrant in my garden, although its fragrance is not as powerful as that of Den. anosmum.   The fragrance is subtly different from the sweet smell of Den. anosmum, but I lack the training to give an exact description of the fragrance.   I find its fragrance pleasing.

 As can be seen in the photo above the plant has a few keikis.  These will be removed and planted separately at the start of the next dry season, when the plant is dormant.  Some keikis will be removed along with the cane they are growing from to give them a sizeable reserve of water and nutrients to fall back on when they are producing their next year growth and roots.

Dendrobium Culture: Making a Den cretaceum specimen plant

 

Some years ago, I started cultivating a Dendrobium cretaceum plant with the aim of eventually getting a specimen plant with many flowers.  For aesthetic reasons I decided to cultivate the plant so that the canes hang from the bottom of the basket.   The orchid is planted in a way that is extremely different from what is the usual way of growing Dendrobium.   The plant was originally attached to the center of the bottom of the basket.  That way the roots would grow up into the potting mix and the canes would grow downward.   That is the exact opposite of how these plants are grown.    The basket is six inches wide and three and a half inch deep.  The potting media is bark, and fills the basket to a depth of two inches.   Den cretaceum is not a big plant so this arrangement allows plenty of space for it to grow for years.

There two-inch layer of media in the basket allows for plenty of air to reach the roots.   This is a very important detail.  You would think that is a very small quantity of media for a plant that one eventually wants to become large and bushy.  But due to the local climatic conditions it is the perfect amount.  The reason is that during summer and fall in my locality it rains almost daily.   At the peak of the rainy season the media can stay wet for weeks or months.   In a plastic pot this would mean a waterlogged media that would quickly become devoid of oxygen, will start rotting and turning into slush under the influence of fungi, bacteria, high temperatures and fertilizer.  

 To my delight, at the start of the 2023 growing season the plant, that usually produces four or five new canes every year, in a fit of exuberance, started producing nine new canes.   This is wonderful but it bring its own suit of problems.   First, all the canes are clustered and oriented toward the strongest source of light.   That means that the plant is self-shading.   This can result in that some of the canes will be spindlier and weaker.   To avoid that I moved the plant to a spot where it gets the strongest sunlight I can give it without burning the leaves.  Eventually as they grow the canes will spread out and the issue will resolve itself.  Because of the particular way the canes of Den cretaceum grow the leaves are not particularly vulnerable to burn if exposed to strong light.  The canes of this orchid arch downward, so that when the sun is at its strongest the leaves are edge on to the light.   A note of warning, while canes are capable of taking full sunlight, the base of the canes are prone to burning if exposed to very strong sunlight.  Fortunately, this is not a problem for me since the basket protects the tender bases from the sunlight.

If all goes well, by the start of the 2024 dry season, the canes will have reached their full size.  When the canes reach full size, I stop watering and fertilizing the plant, it gets only the scant amount of rain we get during the dry season.  The plant loses all its leaves and looks dead for a time.   In April I will start looking for the swelling flower buds along the length of the canes.  Then in May I expect the plant to produce a mass of flowers.  You can see on top the 2023 blooming.   The plant as it is now is in the photo below.

Dendrobium primulinum (now known as Den. polyanthum)

These photos are of a flower that that was just opened.  The flower will expand a bit in the first few days after it opens.  Dendrobium primulinum is a variable species with a vast geographica distribution, but all its forms share the characteristic of a lip that is almost round and very large in comparison with the rest of the floral segments.

Dendrobium polyanthum aka Dendrobium primulinum var. Laos, the flowers of two different clones.

About a decade ago there was a large importation of plants of Dendrobium polyanthum to the island of Puerto Rico, in fact they also seem to have been sold in the United States.  Some ot these plants have survived and bloomed.  The top photo is a flower from a plant that I grew from a keiki.  The flower has a large yellow area in the labellum.  The bottom flower is from a plant that I brought as an adult, the area of yellow is smaller than in the flower on top but the labellum is larger.  The plant that produced the flower on top is a slow deliberate grower that is somewhat delicate, the plant that produced the flower on the bottom is a vigorous grower and blooms relatively well.

Dendrobium polyanthum Wall. ex Lindl. 1830 a rewarding species to grow

In 2007 it produced five flowers

By 2011 it had improved a little

The first time I saw the flowers of this orchid I was absolutely entranced by their beauty.  The plant I took home with me had a single adult cane and the first time it bloomed it produced only five flowers.  But the beauty of the flowers was such that even those few were well worth the effort.  In time, as you can see, it eventually produced a few more flowers.  You can read more about my experience with this species here:

 http://ricardogupi.blogspot.com/2010/10/dendrobium-primulinum-also-known-now-as.html

Dendrobium anosmum and their relatives, warning signs of cultural trouble

Vigorous and healthy root growth, note that the cane producing the roots is twice as thick as the previous growth

New roots are white older ones are grey green, absence of root growth is a clear signal of trouble

Fungal and bacterial infections can strike with astonishing speed and virulence, this is all that remained of a specimen plant of Dendrobium formosum var. giganteum.  If the gravity of the situation had been recognized on time at least some pices would have been saved for propagation

This Dendrobium nobile has been growing for many years in an avocado tree under hot tropical conditions.  It has never bloomed although in all aspects it is mature plant fully capable of blooming.

Dendrobium nobile blooming in a shady and cool location.

A Dendrobium phalaenopsis derived hybrid which lost all its roots due to inappropiate potting, all the old roots are dead but some new roots are showing their tips near the base of the canes.

The buds at the base of this canes are dead so the plant is producing new growths from buds higher up in the cane.

The base of these canes of Den. primulinum was damaged by sunburn and died.     The canes were bent so that the keikis produced by them can attach themselves to the basket.  Notice the many keikis and their abundant root growth.

Den. phalaenopsis hybrid grown with its roots exposed.  Note the abundant flower production and the fully leafed new cane.  It is normal for older canes to lose their leaves after the first year.

Under good care some keikis will bloom even when they are not affixed to anything

When they are growing at their preferred temperature and lighting range, well cared pendent dendrobiums grow vigorously, without any particular trouble and bloom reasonably well. But when they are grown under conditions that are unsuitable for them several things happen that serve as a warning signs that the plant is not doing well. I will detail some that I have learned from the bitterest experience. This is a work in progress and I will try to add information as time permits.

I. When your plant needs a colder rest period to bloom than you can provide.

If a plant needs a colder rest period to bloom but otherwise the conditions are to its liking you will get an endless production of handsome canes, which will be plump and healthy but will never bloom or even get in bud. Because circumstances prevent them from blooming these plants channel their energy into growth and can produce quite large plants. One Den. chrysanthum I have eventually produced a ten feet long cane. This particular plant has never produced even a single bud under the local climatical conditions. Dendrobium nobile will not usually bloom in coastal Puerto Rico but will bloom nicely if moved to locations about a 1,000 feet high in the mountain areas and in certain colder inland areas. There are plants here and there that bloom under conditions that are not in their usual preferred range but usually they do so erratically or poorly.

II. When the temperature is not in the preferred range for growth.

The first signs of trouble in this case is usually a lack of root growth. Unfortunately some pendent dendrobiums can survive for many years growing weakly and with root systems that barely sustain whatever meagre growth they manage. It can happen that the plants perk up and do produce good growth during brief times when conditions are to their liking, but as soon as temperatures drift out of their preferred range the plants weaken again. I brought a Den. falconeri that managed to survive ten years by growing acceptably during the brief weeks that local temperatures dipped and then sulking the rest of the year. Strenuous efforts to sustain this plant only lengthened the agony. Eventually the plant dissolved into a mass of tiny canes and diminutive keikis that were too weak to survive the summers heat. Keiki production on a a same year growth is also a very bad warning sign. It usually means that the plant inability to produce roots has made it transfer its energy to keiki production.

III. When it is not getting enough sunlight

If your plant is not getting enough sunlight to bloom properly you will probably get a few blooms right on the tip of the cane. A plant that might produce dozens of blooms might only produce two or three. The canes themselves might get to be abnormally long and thin. The leaves will have a deep green color.

IV. When roots are not entering the potting mix, or holding the mount.

This probably mean the mix is unsuitable for the plant because it has some characteristic that is inhibiting or killing root growth. A friend of mine accidentally killed many of his orchids by mounting them on the wood of a plant whose wood is permeated by a substance this plant secretes to kill other plants that  might compete with it for food or sunlight.  

V. A growth coming from a cane other than last years cane, if last year cane doesn't grow.

It probably means that the base of its newer cane is dead and the plant is trying to keep alive by producing growths elsewhere. In some plants, (this is an specially insidious occurrence in pendent dendrobiums) a cane that has shed its leaves can continue attached to a dead base without any obvious signs of distress for months before decay reveals that the base is dead.

VI.When a cane suddenly stops growing in the middle of producing a new leaf.

Usually means that something has severed the connection between the growing tip and the base of the plant. I have seen this happens when an insect gnaws the middle of a cane and makes a cavity but leaves it mostly attached to the base on the sides of the cane. This can cause the death of the whole cane, not just the tip.  On some ocassions this can signal a bacterial or fungal infection of a stealthy nature that only becomes obvious when the cane starts to decay rapidly at a time when it should have been growing.

VII. Blackened and sunken areas between the base of the plant and the lower part of the cane.

Can mean sunburn to this area, can result on the death of the plant but the survival of some of the canes.

VIII. Profuse keiki production on plants that normally produce them sparingly.

A sign of root loss, or of loss of the buds at the base of the plant.

IX. A weaker cane than the previous year's cane.

Plant is not getting what it needs to grow well, common in newly repoted plants that have suffered severe root loss and plant adjusting to new environments.

All this information is courtesy of the need to unwind after an unexpedtedly streesful day at work.

Fragrant Dendrobium, ideal for a perfumed tropical garden



Dendrobium anosmum, all plant of this species I have grown are capable of producing the strong sweet fragrance characteristic of this species, the scientific name, anomum, which means without fragrance, must have been given by an anosmic individual!  This species when well bloomed can produce a powerful fragrance that can be clearly smell from many feet away.

 I have grown Dendrobium orchids for many years and it is one of my favorite orchid genera. Of the Dendrobium, the ones I like best are the fragrant species and hybrids. In the following article I will share details on the species and varieties I have grown, on their fragrances and on the particular quirks that the various species have exhibited under my culture.




Many years ago, in a book whose title I can’t remember, I read about a circular garden that was divided in six parts. Each part of the garden was devoted to a different sense. The garden had five wedges, where all the wedges converged in the center there was another circle, this one devoted to the sixth sense, intuition, and planted with only with golden flowers. This garden captured my imagination, but unfortunately I could not make one. My work as a wildlife biologist has meant that I have lived either in urban areas near universities or deep in protected forests, in these places this type of garden was impossible. But in these settings orchids allowed me to enjoy delightful fragrances, lovely colors and interesting shapes without the need of large spaces, digging, or modifying the landscape in any significant way. Orchids had also the virtue of portability, when I moved, (something that has happened several times during my career), I just took them with me with little problem.


Of all the orchids I have, the Dendrobium represent the best combination of ease of culture, resistance to pests and consistent flowering. This didn’t happen by chance, I did my homework and tried to acquire those species that were best suited for my climatic conditions. Getting the information on the cultural needs of the particular Dendrobium you want to grow is very important as some species need a certain degree of seasonal variation of temperature and moisture to stimulate the buds in the cane to change from the vegetative to flowering mode. Pest resistance is important to me as I don’t want to have to continually use pesticides just to keep my plants in good condition. I do use pesticides but on spot applications and not as preventive measures. In respect to consistent flowering, taking care to give the plants the proper culture they need goes a long way toward achieving regular flowering even on plants that are sometimes labeled as difficult. I suspect that some of the difficulties faced by growers getting their plants to bloom may have to do with growers trying to grow them under conditions that are not really suited to that particular species.

I grow my orchids outside, in a terrace and in a shade house. I live near the central mountain range of Puerto Rico at an altitude of 1000 feet (350 mts), near the center of the Rio Abajo State Forest, where I work. The local temperatures range from 60F (16C) at night at the peak of winter to 90F at daytime in the height of summer, daily temperature variation is about 10 to 15 degrees. There are just two seasons, a dry and a wet one. Humidity fluctuates most of the year between 70 and 80% but varies from 40% during the day at the peak of the dry season to close to 100% at night during the rainy season. The plants are watered weekly during if it doesn’t rain. The plants are regularly watered during the dry season with the exception of those that need a seasonal dry spell. The plants receive fertilizer only when they are growing. Some effort was made to find the optimal sun exposure for each species. It was found that most bloom much better with several hours of exposure to full sunlight in the morning.

Dendrobium anosmum alba, small flowered, small lipped clone

Dendrobium anosmun var. huttoni

The most common type of Den. anosmum is also the most floriferous, it is capable of producing more than sixty flowers on a single cane

Den. anomum variety from Thailand, the flower is suspiciously similar to Den. Nestor but the canes are unique and not similar at all to those of Nestor

Den. Nestor clone, favoring the anosmum parent, but note the fuzzy lip that betrays the parishii ancestry, at time sold as anosmum, all Nestor I have grown have the sweet fragrance associated with anosmum

A Den. Nestor that favors the parishii parent

A Den. Nestor that is quite distinct from most other forms hybrid

A very small lipped form of Den. Nestor with very thick textured flowers

In the front, Den. farmeri var. albiflorum, an outstading clone of this type, in the background a typically colored form. The fragrance is faint but clearly felt when there are many flowers

A flower of Den. farmeri albiflorum

Den. farmeri, a faint fragrance

Dendrobium harveyanum, formerly an extremerly difficult to find species, a slight honey fragrance

Den. crumenatum, powerfully fragrant at certain times of the day

Den. parishii, delightfully frangrant with a sweet note

Den. chrysotoxum, a sweet slight honey fragrance

Den. fimbriatum var. oculatum, a sour citrical fragrance

Den. nobile, a slight sweet fragrance

Dendrobium moschatum it has complex fragrance delightful to some, unpleasant to others

Dendrobium spectabile it has a complex fragrance sweet to some, to others like crushed stinkbugs

Dendrobium primulinum 'DeLeon' an interesting plant

Flower with nearly round lip

flower with a very small scoop like lip

Large flower with oblong lip that has a ridge in the middle

This is a flower that is just opening it will expand until it look that the one in the photo over this one

A fairly good blooming althought the presentation is not the best

Large plant growing in a fairly small wire basket

I brought this interesting Dendrobium a few years ago from Eli Orchids in Utuado, a town in the mountainous interior of the island of Puerto Rico. When I got this plant it was labeled as Dendrobium primulinum var. Leon and for lack of a better name I kept this ID and photos of this plant taken by me can be seen in several orchid forums. However when it bloomed the flowers were oddly different from what most books and Internet photos identified as typical primulinum. I found photos of flowers that had some resemblance to those of my plant, the flowers were those of variety Assamicum. However on closer inspection the resemblance proved to be superficial. Compounding the problem of identification was the strange proclivity of this plant to produce flowers of widely differing sizes and shapes. Even worse some flowers expand quite a bit and may look one way freshly opened and another after they have been open for a week. A few days ago, with the help of Brian Monk who answered a question I posted in the Orchid Source forum, I finally learned that the true identity of my plant is Dendrobium primulinum DeLeon.

But the doubt I had about this plant identity plant, when I first bloomed it, piqued my curiosity so I studied scientific descriptions of the flowers of primulinum to better understand this plant. What I found is that the appearance of the flowers of this species is more variable in color and shape than one would guess judging from the characteristic of those exhibited and grown in the United States. The plants in the US, at least judging from photos of collections and exhibitions used to be, until recently, relatively uniform in appearance. I would like to add that primulinum now has been lumped with cretaceum and the plants are called Dendrobium polyanthum.

The form of primulinum commonly pictured in those books and photos that have been available to me has thick, arched canes that are relatively short. The flowers in these plants have hairy lips of a light yellow color, the sepals and petals are varied shades of mauve. In the lip, usually to the side of the column there are purple lines that have a varying extent in different clones. I have occasionally seen plants of this type in local collections, but I have never seen one in bloom anywhere in PR.

About four years ago a new type of primulinum appeared locally. This new type was part of a huge importation of all types of Dendrobium for the spring show of the PR Orchid Society show. It is clear plants of this type were also imported into the US as photos of the flowers of plants of this type cropped up in the Orchid Source forum. This new type has large flowers with a beautiful bright yellow color covering the center of a white lip, the sepals and petals were a delightful soft pink. But this new plant didn’t resemble DeLeon at all. The vegetative parts of this plant were different from De Leon and the thick short canes of the primulinum I had known previously. This plant resembles those plants known in Japan as var. giganteum.

Information on primulinum DeLeon is pretty sparse. I did several Internet searched and frustratingly and vexingly the results of the searches were either posts that I had made about this plant on the various Internet orchid growing forums or the advertisements of the vendor that sold me this plant. Thanks to Brian Monk I learned that this plant earned a certificate of cultural merit for its owner back in 1968, the plant exhibited had 101 flowers.

My plants grow well without any special treatment but are curiously varied in their blooming. This is a bit surprising since all are descendants of the same plant. Some produce large flowers with huge round white lips other produce smaller flowers. At times a cane can have large flowers near the top and smaller flowers near the tip. The lips of some of the flowers are very round others are oblong and some even have a ridge down the middle. It is unclear what causes this variation in the flowers but in general older plants with several older mature canes produce better flowers than younger plants with just a few small canes. A peculiar characteristic of this plant is that the first few leaves of the new canes can have a bright reddish or purplish tint in the margins, this I have not seen in any other Dendrobium of this type that I have grown.

This plant doesn’t seem to need much rooting media to subtract enough water and nutrients to prosper an achieve a good size. One of my plant has six healthy new canes from three to four feet of lenght and several older canes all growing from a mass of media two inches thick and six inches wide. However it is to be noted that this plant gets drenched every day during summer and fertilized weekly for as long as the canes are producing new leaves. This plant usually finished its growth cycle October and starts shedding its leaves by November.

Some years the plants blooms wonderfully, others they barely produce one flower or two. But I enjoy so much the flowers when they are produced that I don’t mind the fact that some years some plant fail to bloom. I have been looking at the wonderful plants that have been awarded in Japan and I have realized that the flowers of my plants would look even better if I did some grooming of the canes before the buds open to prevent crowding of the blooms. I am looking forward to next year blooming to see if I can make the 2011 blooming the most beautiful and elegant ever.

Dendrobium primulinum, also known now as Den. polyanthum

I have had Dendrobium primulinum for about five years and I have found it is among the most beautiful and easy to grow of all Dendrobium. Unfortunately easy to grow doesn't necessarily means it is also easy to bloom. All the plants I have brought have grown well with what I consider standard care for members of the Dendrobium section of the genus Dendrobium. However getting these plants to bloom has been at times a source of frustration and disappointment. It appears that I am growing this species at the very upper limit range of their temperature tolerance for blooming. That means that relatively small variations on the night temperatures at certain critical parts of the year can have profound influence on the quality and quantity of the blooming.


Growers that grow primulinum in the lowland coastal plains of Puerto Rico report that the plants bloom with few flowers or even a single one. Other plants may fail to bloom at all. Irma Selles,a well known local orchidist or renowned skill growing plants showed in an Internet forum a large healthy plant with only a single flower. Dr. Julio David Rios, an accomplished grower of many types of orchids says that his primulinum plant has never bloomed. Don Alfonso a Mayaguez grower that had a large collection of orchids in the seventies and eighties that had a plant of primulinum var. giganteum for many years would complain that his plants bloomed very rarely and often would produce just a single flower. All the plants in the previously cited cases are growing under a climatic regime where night temperatures rarely fall much under 75F at night even at the depth of the tropical winter (which actually is not that cold and could be more properly regarded as the dry season). Where I live, in the mountainous interior of the island, at a height of about a 1,000 feet, temperatures fall to the top sixties at night in winter and may go down to the high fifties for a few nights during the coldest part of the year.
This 10 degree difference between the night temperatures in the coast and the interior makes all the difference in blooming primulinum. But it has to be said that even thought my plants bloom better than the plants in the coast, they could probably bloom even better if the temperatures dropped down consistently into the fifties. I know this because I have seen photos of primulinum growing outdoors in Hong Kong, China and there they produce many more flowers in a single cane than plants in Puerto Rico. In the year 2009 my plant bloomed poorly, with the exception of a single cane that produced two flowers all the other canes failed to bloom. Some of my primulinum, a plant labeled var. Leon, seems to be less sensitive to excessive warmth, however even this plant has, on occasion, failed to bloom.  So if you have cool winters where temperature dips into the fifties and forties, and you also have sunny, warm and wet summers, this plant will probably do well for you.

I have my plants in a place where they get full sun during the morning. Due to the orientation of the shadehouse where they are growing they get more sun as autumn goes into winter, this is similar to what happens in their native habitat where they are exposed to brighter light conditions when the trees where they live lose their leaves.
My plants are watered daily from May to November and then the watering frequency tampers down until they may not get water for two or three weeks at the height of the dry season. I watch the canes and if they get too wrinkled I water the plant lightly.
During their growth phase, in my garden it is from May to November, I fertilize every week. I also put a few pieces of dry cow or horse manure on top of the media, this seems to help produce larger canes. Because the plants are grown outdoors and get a good deal of rain I don’t worry about fertilizer salts build up on the baskets where they are grown.

I grow them on plastic and wire baskets that allow for excellent exposure to air of the roots. The roots die if deprived of oxygen and this can spell doom for a plant. My plants are grown hanging from the bottom of the baskets, this allows for a more natural presentation of the flowers and in my view for easier watering and fertilizing. I don’t grow my plants in plaques of any kind as local conditions means that they dry up very fast necessitating too frequent watering.
They seem to grow well in all the media I have tried bark, cork and coconut. I would guess that these plants will grow well in most orchid planting media as long as watering and fertilizing is done taking in account the properties of the media.
I have three types of primulinum, one has bluish petals and sepals and a white lip, another has al white lip with two yellow eyes and baby pink sepals and petals. The flower of the third type I have has so much yellow in the lip that it resembles a Dendrobium farmeri flower, the petals and sepals of this flower are light pink. I have heard about some plants that have been offered for sale as primulinum alba, but the ones I have seen appear to be white individuals of a similar species Dendrobium cretaceum.
Although primulinum has very beautiful flowers, if care is not taken to groom the plant the flowers can suffer from a poor presentation. This mainly consists of flowers in each side of a cane pointing in opposite directions and flowers from different canes getting all bunched up. I have seen photos of plants exhibited in orchid shows in Asia, in particular in Japan and Taiwan which were groomed with skill that the intrinsic beauty of the flowers was greatly enhanced by the delight artistry of the presentation.

When my plants bloom next year I will try to emulate the high standards set by exhibitors in Asia to make my plants a living work of Art. Wish me luck!

Notice the excellent presentation with all the flowers pointing to the same side

An unusually dark blooming of var. Leon

Note the huge round lip characteristic of this species