I brought this plant about three years ago as a three bulb
division. Initially, the plant didn’t
had much by the way of roots so growth was slow. After the first new growth produced roots
the plant grew better, with larger growths.
However it didn’t bloom until the plant had accumulated several large
and plump pseudobulbs.
The inflorescences are wiry and I didn’t notice them at
first. The inflorescences in my plant
open their flowers sequentially, having just one flower open at a time. The flowers are large and striking, you can
easily see the echinolabium parent
influence in them.
This plant is cultivated in a relatively small pot, about
five inches wide, in bark with some Styrofoam peanuts in the bottom of the pot
to aid drainage. The plant gets watered
twice a week when it is in full growth and it has not rained in the previous
few days. When it is not in its growth
phase it can go one or two weeks without watering with no sign of
distress. But when it is producing
pseudobulbs I don’t allow it to go bone dry.
The plant get full sun for about two hours early in the
morning and then sunlight filtered through the canopy of tall trees. During part of the year the sun comes up in
a gap between two large trees this means that the plants get more hours of
direct sunlight early in the morning.
They have shown no ill effects due to the increased light exposure.
I have not been able to detect any fragrance from the
flowers. However the flowers are
attracting the local flies, so it is probably producing at least some
fragrance, probably with a distinct fecal smell. I found one fly stuck to the fluid in the
stigmatic cavity. I released it and it
fled with alacrity. Other flies were
seen in the vicinity but so far only one has become trapped.
No comments:
Post a Comment