Friday, January 2, 2015

Dendrobium MacPerson, the first of my plants to have flowers in 2015





Dendrobium Alex MacPherson is the hybrid of Dendrobium Salak and Dendrobium helixDen. Salak is a hybrid of Den. stratiotes and Den. discolor.   In this particular plant the strength of the heritage of the Den. helix parent can be noted in the color of the flower.  The flowers of this hybrid resemble mainly the flowers of the Den. helix parent, although they are smaller and more numerous in the inflorescence than the flowers of my plant of Den. helix.

In this particular plant the flowers are crowded in the inflorescence which makes it difficult to take good photos of individual flowers.  I cut some flowers from the inflorescence so I could show the variation on petal orientation between different flowers.  There is also some very slight variation of color between individual flowers.


A few years back I brought a number of plants of this species because they were labeled Den. helix.  As they bloom during the year I document the differences between the different clones.  In this one the pink is confined to the sepals while the petals are orange.  Some flowers show a bit of orange color on the sepals.  

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