Blc. Lawless Walkiire 'The Ultimate'

A wonderful large and shapely Cattleya hybrid.  Unfortunately, the flower had a certain amount of wind damage due to the high winds that has blown intermittently in the locality in the last few days.   It really grabs your attention in the orchid house due to its bright reddish color.

Bulbophyllum corolliferum J.J.Sm. 1917

I photographed this orchid in a friend's shadehouse.  This plant is grown under light shade in a very humid and hot location a few hundred feet from the seashore.  The plant is grown a few inches over some large outdoors aquariums which maintain a very high humidity microclimate even in the dry season.  However the humidity is not stifling as during the day there is a breeze from the sea and during the night the direction of the breeze reverses.

Not afraid to show its tougher, larger female side; Cycnoches Jean E. Monnier (Cyc. barthiorum x Cyc. cooperi)

Female flower

Inflorescence of male flowers

Male flowers

The genus Cycnoches produces flower that can be male or female.   The male flowers are normally smaller and more numerous, the female flowers are larger and fewer in number.  My plants of Cycnoches Jeane E. Monnier (Cyc. barthiorum x Cyc. cooperi) would bloom several times a season with inflorescences of small papery male flowers.  But on one occasion one of the plants produced a female flower. 

The plant produced a single female flower.  The female flower was big, much bigger than the male flowers. The floral segments of had a heavier texture and it had a different color than the male flowers.  The male flowers, because they were relatively thin textured become spotted and decay quite easily, the female flower was longer lasting. 

 

My experience cultivating Cycnoches is paradoxical.  They grew well, flowered abundantly and few pests bothered them.  They thrived, that is until they died.  All the plants died the same way.  One day I would find a sunken yellow spot in the stem and in a few days the spot would spread and the plant would rot away.  Cutting the plant in pieces in an effort to save a least a piece, didn’t work.  Some pieces of stem would endure for a time and then they would start producing shoots, only to start rotting away.  Even Cycnoches barthiorum, a plant that I grew for a whole decade in spite of its reputation as a difficult plant, eventually succumbed this way. 

Liparis nervosa (Thungberg) Lindley 1830

Seed capsules starting their development

This is a common orchid in the understory of wet and moist forests from low to high elevations, it is widespread except along the south coast of Puerto Rico.¹  This plant is cosmopolitan, that is it is found all over the world. Although this is a relatively common plant it is very rare to see it in local orchid collections, only people that grow native orchids usually show any interest on it and of those it is only the most dedicated and hardcore that keep them.

The flowers are small and relatively inconspicuous.  You need a magnifying lens to truly appreciate their beauty.  All the plants that I have seen in the wild have been growing terrestrially in the gently sloping sides of the local haystack hills.  

¹ Ackerman, James D.  1995.  An orchid flora of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.