Paphiopedilum (Paph. moquetteanum x Paph. rothschildianum), first bloom seedling

I am in love!  The flower is huge, and I love the color.  This is the first time this seedling has bloomed.  I produced just a single large flower.  I expect that in the future it will produce more flowers per inflorescence.  In the meantime I am not complaining, I find it lovely.  I brought this plant some years ago, as happens with other rothschildianum crosses, it has taken its time reaching blooming size.

Bulbophyllum rothschildianum (O'Brien) J.J. Sm. 1912, in 2016

In 2016, this orchid has produced his best blooming ever, with several inflorescences at the same time.  I attribute this to better care during its growing season and that I found the light exposure that is best for good growth, full sun for a few hours in the morning and bright shade the rest of the day.

Ancistrochilus rothschildianus O'Brien 1907

I saw this plant at the 2016 Puerto Rico Orchid society show at the Jardin Botanico de Rio Piedras.  I have cultivated this plant in the past and I found it easy to grow and bloom in the central part of Puerto Rico at an altitude of 1000 feet over sea level.  It needed frequent fertilization to produce the husky pseudobulbs that bloom.  After the pseudobulbs matured I stopped fertilizing it.  I gave it a rest period during the local dry season.  Became a mass of bulbs but then I lost it to rot during a time when it rained daily for weeks.

Bulbophyllum Lovely Elizabeth, it bloomed in spring and in the fall produced an inflorescence that was larger than the previous one

Bulbophyllum Lovely Elizabeth (Bulb. Elizabeth Ann x Bulb. rothschildianum)

I brought this plant last year to Hausermann orchids.  I was pleasantly surprised when the plant bloomed just a few weeks after it arrived.  I has bloomed again in April.  The flowers look to me like a nicer, larger version of Bulb. rothschildianum.   I started producing a new growth in December, but a dastardly snail ate it.  The plant is now in a spot that snail can't reach.

Paphiopedilum Genevieve Booth (Paph. Mount Toro x Paph. rothschildianum)

Adult plants of tropical ladyslippers are not easy or cheap to get in Puerto Rico.  That means that you have to buy small seedlings by mail and then wait until they achieve blooming size.  For some plants you can wait quite a bit for them to reach adult size. This was the first blooming of this plant.  A snail ate a hole in the stem of the inflorescence.  When I moved the plant, the inflorescence broke.  You can imagine how mad I was.   Hopefully it will bloom next year and I will be able to enjoy an inflorescence with all its flowers open.

Bulbophyllum Elisabeth Ann a pale clone

Bulbophyllum Elisabeth Ann is the cross of Bulb. rothschidianum x Bulb. longissimum.  Different clones can vary in the way that they resemble their parents.  Most people prefer those clones that show the rich red color of the rothschildianum parent.  I have several clones I brought some time ago, this is the most pale of the lot.  Unfortunately the yellow color is not bright and it is noticeable only when one looks at the plant closely, the pink color tends to overshadow it.

Paphiopedilum St. Swithin (rothschildianum x phillipinensis) a tropical ladyslipper hybrid with large flowers

Tropical ladyslipper orchids of the genus Paphiopedilum are not a common sight on orchid collections in Puerto Rico.  Large flowered Paph. rothschildianum hybrids are even rarer.  I brought this Paph. St. Swithin as a tiny seedling, frankly I have forgotten the date, probably seven or eight years ago.  This plant grew slowly but surely and I sometimes wondered if it would ever bloom.  Last year it produced its first flowers and in 2014 it has bloomed again.  The flowers are delightful in their own odd way.  They are far larger than those of my phillipinensis plants.  Perhaps the best thing I like about this orchid, aside from the flowers is that it is very easy to cultivate under my conditions, it thrives with the same care I would give any house plant.  The plant is producing new growths and I am looking forward to the time when it will produce two, or maybe, one dare hope, three inflorescences at the same time.  

Ancistrochilus rothschildianus O'Brien 1907, some cultural notes.

I have grew this species in my house in the forest in Rio Abajo, Puerto Rico.  Here are some notes on the way I cultured it.

Media: Bark, I used fine bark of the finest quality so it would not decay too fast

Potting: I grew it on a four inch deep plastic pot, excellent drainage is a must.

Fertilizing: High nitrogen fertilizer when it was producing new pseudobulbs, after the pseudobulb matured, no fertilizer was given until it started a new growth.

Light: Full morning sun until about 10 am, sunlight filtered through the tree canopy after midday, It gets this regime because it is what is available on the only spot that I had to put this plant.

Temperature: From 95F high during the day in summer to 60F during the night in winter. 

Watering:  Since it usually was growing during the rainy season, no additional water was given to it.  It was not watered at all during the dry season.

I never really repotted this plant in the traditional sense, I would carefully take it aout of the pot, shake the media that looked too decayed and then put the plant back in the same pot with as much fresh media to replace what had decayed.

My plant grew very well and eventually filled the pot where it was growing and started growing down the sides.  I lost this plant after a spell of extremely wet weather late in the year caused it to contract rot.

                      

Bulbophyllum Doris Dukes (Bulb. fascinator x Bulb. rothschildianum)

I saw this Bulbophyllum hybrid in the Mayaguez Orchid Festival of September 2013.    It is a hybrid of Bulb. fascinator and Bulb. rothschildianum.  It produces pretty red flower that look intermediate between the parents.  Both species are relatively easy to grow in Puerto Rico although they are not often seen outside the collections of specialists growers.  

Bulbophyllum rothschildianum (O’Brien) J.J. Smith (1912) , not difficult to grow in Puerto RIco, but susceptible to scales

This species comes from India and Thailand.¹  I brought some small seedlings about a decade ago.  They proved to be easy to care for and grew well under the climatic conditions (warm) that are prevalent in my local area.  Unfortunately the plants turned out to be vulnerable to infestation by hard brown scale.  The plants were successfully treated for this insect pest but they apparently suffered considerably and were weakened by the scales.  Scales are an insidious and persistent pest that needs constant vigilance to keep under control.

My plants spent several years without blooming.  The flowers in the photos of this post are the first ones since the infestation.  My plants come from seedlings that were the product of crossing two plants, not from meristem cloning of a selected plant.  As a result my two plants produce somewhat different flowers.  One produced mostly red flowers whose petals at times separate.  The other produces flowers that are variable and can be solid red, stripped in red and green and even have one red sepal and one green/red stripped sepal in the same plant.

The flowers in this blooming of my plant are few and small compared with the inflorescences of an awarded clone that is in optimum conditions.  However I expect that in coming years my plant will grow stronger and better.    A selected clone of this species can have lateral sepals measuring from 13.5 to 15 cm, hopefully my plants will some day approach this size.¹

¹Siegerist, Emly S. 2001. Bulbophyllums and their allies: A grower’s guide

Bulbophyllum Elizabeth Ann, two unnamed clones

This plant would produce large umbels of pink flowers

The same plant as the previous photo but using a
black background to highlight the size of the tails

The plant would produce several large umbels at the same time

This is a different clone from the previous photo.  It would produce
few flowered umbels of deeply colored flowers

Many years ago I brought two tiny Bulbophyllum seedlings from the H&R company in Hawaii.  They took three years to bloom, but the patience was well rewarded as the flowers were large and brightly colored.  One clone was very vigorous and would produce large umbels of pink flowers.  The other clone was a slower grower and its inflorescences produced fewer flower, but the delightful color of the flowers more than compensated the smaller size of the umbel.  Unfortunately I lost both plants due to my inexperience repotting them.   But I am getting a few young plants, who knows what beauty lies in waiting in those seedlings!

Bulbophyllum Elizabeth Ann 'Jean'

This plant was a gift from a friend.  He gave me a bare root two pseudobulb division.    I received the plant from the USA in January 30.  The date is important because it means that I had to help establish a bare root Bulbophyllum in the low humidity environment of the local dry season.  Potting this plant in a wire basket, as I prefer to do with Bulbophyllum, was out of question as the basket, even if watered daily, would dry much too fast for the needs of a plant trying to grow a new root system.  So I planted the Bulbophyllum in a one inch deep, eight inches wide plastic dish of the kind that is put under pots to hold water.  I filled the dish with sphagnum moss and kept the moss moist all the time.  The plant didn’t show any activity for months, near the end of the dry season it started producing new growths.  The backbulb produced a side branch and the leading bulb produced two growths.

By the time the new pseudobulbs were growing at their fastest pace the rainy season had arrived (by this time it was May) and low humidity was no longer an issue.  The new pseudobulbs were smaller than the original ones, which is understandable considering the orchid produced these growths without the benefit of an established root system.  The new pseudobulbs produced abundant roots when they reached the end of their development.

All the new pseudobulbs pleasantly surprised me by producing inflorescences.  But not all inflorescences were of equal quality.  The new pseudobulb that grew from the older pseudobulb of the original plant was stronger and produced a full sized inflorescence.  The inflorescences from the two smaller pseudobulbs were also small and some of the flowers were aborted.  But I was not disappointed since the flowers from the larger inflorescence were so nice.

This particular Bulbophyllum can grow into a large specimen plant if given good consistent care.  You can find photos of impressively large plants in the internet.  I find this plant easy to grow.   Unfortunately the length of the internodes between pseudobulbs means that this plant will outgrow most pots and baskets in a relatively short time.  From what I have seen in the Internet, the best option for this plant seems to be to grow it mounted.  I plan to eventually move my plant to a tree fern pole.  I use tree fern poles because I planted a Bulbophyllum lepidum on one and the plant thrived for many years.

Bulbophyllum Melting Point (Doris Dukes x longissimum)

The flowers of this Bulbophyllum can reach twelve inches long or more.

This Bulbophyllum has been easy to grow and generally trouble free in its culture, except for scales, which have been a recurrent problem with this one.  It blooms during November and December.  It produces from seven to nine inflorescences over the course of six week to two months.  During this span of time it typically has a few inflorescences in development and one or two open at the same time.  The flowers are quite long, at 12 inches they are about an inch longer than the flowers of my Bulbophyllum longissimum.  Inflorescences last in perfection about a week if protected from the weather and insects.  Because I cultivate these orchids outdoors they are often damaged by small curculionid beetles.   I have not detected any fragrance and the flowers seem to be ignored by local pollinators such as flies, which are often seen around other Bulbophyllum flowers.    Because the pseudobulbs are growing in an untidy clump I have to be on the look for developing inflorescences as they can get trapped in the tangle of roots and stems.

Media: It was initially potted in medium bark.  But as time went by the bark decayed and now it is growing mostly on a tangle of the remains of its own roots and a few left over pieces of bark that have not been washed away by watering.

Potting:  It is growing in a plastic twelve inch wide dish that is about two inches deep.  It has been in this dish for about six years and has formed a tangle of pseudobulbs growing in all directions.  Some stems grew over the rim of the dish and then under the dish, but these were removed when large enough to survive on their own.

Watering:  During the summer this plant gets rain every single day in the afternoon, the media stays constantly wet for months.  During the dry season, if it is not growing it gets a soaking once a week or a bit more frequently if the bulbs start to become furrowed.

Humidity: The local weather provides the right amount of humidity for this plant most of the year.  Humidity locally fluctuates between 70% and 90% during the day.  At the height of the dry season humidity might go down to 50% for a few hours a day but climbs over 70% at night.  At the height of the wet season it can stay close to 100% during the night.

Fertilizing: A fertilizer with high nitrogen content is used two times a week when this plant is producing new growths.  I stop fertilizing when the new growths achieve mature size.  I don’t’ fertilize if the plant is not producing either new growths or roots.

Light: It gets bright light, it is with my Cattleya, it gets full sun early in the morning and the rest of the day it is under the shade of trees.  It is not in deep shade.

Temperature: From 95 F high day to 75 F at night during the summer, 80F to 60F during the night in winter.

Care: Under my conditions, this plant thrives with routine care.

Pests:  Scales are a recurrent problem, in particular some that are yellow and flat.  A few pseudobulbs have been lost to rot, but the rot appears to have occurred mostly on old and damaged pseudobulbs.