Grammatophyllum culture: My experience with plants that have lost their roots

 

The aftermath of hurricanes Irma and Maria left most people in the island of Puerto Rico scrambling to secure the basic survival needs.  I my case, I was so busy at work, that for many months I could not pay attention to my orchids.   The hurricanes destroyed the forest canopy in my locale.  This produced wildly fluctuating temperature, humidity and light exposure.   Periods of extreme rain alternated with periods of almost no rain.  Many of my orchids could not adapt to the new circumstances and died.   Those that survived often suffered massive root loss.   Among those that lost their roots were my Grammatophyllums of the scriptum and elegans type.  As a result, they became much smaller, some plants divided into small groups of rootless pseudobulbs. 

Normally, Grammatophyllums are tough and resilient, but their tolerance was solely tested after the hurricanes.   To compound the problem the tags of most of them were lost.  So I took the remaining pieces and planted them in a variety of mounts to see in which ones they did better.   I have one advantage most people don’t enjoy, the humidity in my locale normally lies in the range that is good for tropical orchids. 

I planted the pieces I had in four different ways.   One was tied to a wire framework, with nothing else to provide attachment or moisture.  Another was put on a small plastic mesh pot filled with bark.  A third one was put on top of a metal wire basket.  Lastly one was tied to the bottom of a wire basket.  Before I go on, I have to explain what is a root basket.   Grammatophyllum often produces a mass of roots with many roots pointing upwards.  The purpose of these roots is to trap leaves and debris that fall on the plant as a source of moisture and nutrients.  A healthy plant often has a large root basket surrounding its pseudobulbs.  Many people affix their plants to tree fern plaques, or grow them in wooden baskets to allow the roots of the root basket to expand at will.  

 After a few years of care this is the results:  The one that was tied to the metal wire mesh has done better, it’s the one that has the most bulbs and the largest root basket.   On second place came the one on top of a metal wire basket, it produced small bulbs until it reached the edge of the basket, then produced the largest pseudobulb of them all.   Unfortunately, I put this one in a planter and it send a mass of roots into the pot next to it.  I had to rip it from the pot and in the process damaged its root basket, I expect it will recuperate quickly.  On third place is the plant growing attached to the bottom of a wire basket.  It has grown slowly, lost some pseudobulbs to rot and it still hasn’t started producing a root basket.  The piece that is growing on top of the plastic mesh pot filled with bark is the slowest growing of them all.  It only has two relatively small pseudobulbs and its yet to start producing its root basket. 

 From these results, I think it is clear that the Grammatophyllum prefer that their roots not be confined and will do better if their roots can grow at will and are exposed to air.  These plants are heavy feeders and need constant fertilization during their growth cycle for their pseudobulb to attain a large size.  High environmental humidity is extremely important in the case of plants that have lost their roots. 

Grammatophyllum (elegans x scriptum 'hieroglyphica')

There are a number of Grammatophyllum elegans hybrids in the market.  Most differ from each other only on minor details.   I like them all.   

Grammatophyllum scriptum the most common Grammatophyllum, it has a plethora of varieties and forms

The green form sometimes called var. Crinitum

A particularly nice flower of the most common form

An oddly shaped flower with more green than purple

A small flowered type sometimes called multiflorum, which may be a different species or just a small flowered form

A well grown plant of Gramm. scriptum

I have not been able to grow this species with the same success as the other species of the Grammatophyllum genus that I have.  I am starting to wonder whether this has to do with the particular plants of this species that I brought.  So I probably will be trying to grow this species again in the future.  When well cared for this species can grow into a specimen plant of hernia inducing, disk slipping proportions.  Basically it can grow into as large an specimen plant as you are willing to carry around.   There are so many varieties and forms of this species available in the market that you can go all the way from gargantuan plants with towering inflorescences to tiny few flowered plants with inflorescences barely one feet long.

In my experience scriptum produces some of the largest root baskets I have ever seen.  I have concluded that successful care of this species depends on mantaining these root baskets in good condition.  You can read about the culture of these plants under the heading of Gramm. elegans.

Grammatophyllum Tiger Paw, a hybrid of Gramm. elegans and Gramm. fenzlianum

The flower of my plant is unusually full, until recently
 most Tiger Paw sold had spindly flower segments

An inflorescence showing the flower arrangement

A photo using full sunglight, the upper sepal has been reflexed from its natural position

The red toucan key chain serves to give a scale to these inflorescences

The plant stayed in this pot until it was ready to bloom

The mature plant in its new plastic pot.  Note that a relatively small plant is producing three inflorescences

I brought my plant of Grammatophyllum Tiger Paw at a show in Ponce about ten years ago.  The plant was quite tiny with finger sized pseudobulbs but I decide to take a chance on it.  The orchid was planted in a tall plastic pot made from a soda pot bottle.  This plant grew well but relatively slow, the pseudobulbs grew in size but not too much from year to year.  Because it was so small when I purchased it the plant took about five years to reach blooming size, however it has never stopped blooming since that date.  

I find this hybrid is more forgiving of lapses in its care than the elegans parent.  However as in all the Grammatophyllums I have, blooming is mostly determined by how well the plant was cared for when the pseudobulbs were growing.  When I have helped the plant produce large fat pseudobulbs then blooming is all but assured, spindly and skinny pseudobulbs don’t bloom.  My Tiger Paw blooms more reliably than my elegans.

One curious thing my plant has is that its root basket is much smaller than what one would expect given its parents both of which can produce sizeable root masses.  The flowers of my Gramm. Tiger Paw are quite round, this used to be a rare thing in the Tiger Paw hybrids that were available locally but lately plants with nice round flowers are becoming more common. 

An unexpected thing is tha the inflorescences of my plant are smaller that those of either parent that I have seen locally, maybe it's parents were selected from plants with shorter inflorescences.  Its cultural needs are exactly like those of elegans.  This orchid seems much more vulnerable to snail and slug damage in its pseudobulbs than elegans and I have found holes eaten in their pseudobulbs made by snails, something that I have never seen either on elegans or scriptum.

Enormous numbers of this plant, of several varieties of scriptum, and other related Grammatophyllums have been put for sale in the last few years at most orchid shows I have attended in the island.  But apparently their survival locally is poor.  My suspicion is that they are killed when people try to confine their massive root systems to unventilated pots producing inevitable root loss and the death of the plant.