Rhyncholaeliocattleya Memoria Crispin Rosales 'Volcano Queen'

 If you want a large purple Cattleya flower you cannot go wrong with the hybrid Rlc.  Memoria Crispin Rosales.  There are a number of clones of this hybrid available to the public.  I used to have the clone 'Hawaii'.  My plant usually produced two flowers but sometimes it would produce a single humongous flower on the inflorescence.  In my experience very susceptible to white fly and mealy bugs.  I had to be watchful because sometimes white fly would proliferate unnoticed under the dried sheaths of the youngest bulbs.

Stelis perpusilliflora Cogn. in I.Urban 1909 in El Yunque National Forest

 This orchid was photographed in El Yunque National forest.  The flowers are tiny and remain cupped when they open.  The inflorescence is horizontal with the flowers pointing downwards or to the side.  I had to bend the inflorescence upwards to get a view of the inside of the flowers.

Dendrobium stratiotes Rchb. f. 1886

 

In my experience, this Dendrobium does well and its easy to grow in Puerto Rico.  Once the canes have reached mature size, they will produce long lasting flowers.  The canes can vary in size depending on the genetics of the plant and the care it receives.   Sadly, I lost it because I became too complacent about its care.  The thing is, once the cane reaches the side of the pot, its a must to repot it taking care to damage the roots as little as possible.   Neglecting repotting can cause the loss of the plant once the roots that are in the pot die. 

Rhyncholaeliocattleya Nakornchaisiri Delight

 Rhyncholaeliocattleya Nakornchaisiri Delight photographed at the Mayaguez Orchid society show in the Mayaguez Mall. 

Bulbophyllum forrestii Seidenf. 1973

 Native of China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and India.  

Cattleya Jairak Cosmos

 

Acampe rigida, a large plant with small colorful flowers.

 Acampe rigida is a large plant that produces inflorescences with small flowers that are shorter than the leaves.  The flowers are quite colorful.  A few people locally grow this plant, most prefer the large flowered Vandas.  

Cattleya Monte Elegante 'Hsin Pu'

 I photographed this orchid at this month meeting of the PR orchid judging center.  The plant was tall, had immaculate pseudobulbs and the inflorescence was held high over the foliage.  The head of flowers was quite eye catching, it was slightly fragrant.  The flowers were in perfect condition. 

Rlc. Waianae Starburst 'Volcano Queen"

 

Bulbophyllum mastersianum x Bulbophyllum surigaense

 Bulbophyllum mastersianum x Bulbophyllum surigaense 

Renanstylis Susan Lim 'Howdy Doody'

 This is a cross of Renanthera phillippinense and Rhynchostylis gigantea alba.   

Renanthera bella J.J. Wood 1981

 This species is native of Borneo.  This species was once rare, now it can be obtained at reasonable prices.  It is small sized compared with species like coccinea and storiei.  Like all Renantheras it needs exposure to strong light to bloom and frequent watering and fertilizing. 

Bulbophyllum stellatum Ames 1912

 

Bulbophyllum stellatum Ames 1912, is a species that is from the Philippines.  Its a small plant with small flowers on an umbellate inflorescence.

Rlc. Regal Red 'Paradise' x Laelia undulata 'Waldor'

 A cross of a Rhyncholaeliocattleya with a Laelia of the group formerly classified as Schomburkia.   The hybrid has a lovely color that this photo doesn't really capture well.  The flower doesn't resemble much either parent.  Rlc. Regal Red is a round red flower, and Laelia undulata produces a head of small wavy flowers on a long inflorescence.

Rhynchodendrum Cabalgata en Verde x Brassavola cucullata

 This hybrid is a cross of Rhynchodendrum Cabalgata en Verde (Epidendrum ciliare x Rhyncholaelia digbyana) and Brassavola cucullata.  It has a fimbriate lip that shows mainly the influence of Epi. ciliare and B. cucullata.  

A cross of Lc. Lory Ann 'Paradise' x Myrmecophila lyonsii

 This cross of Lc. Lory Ann 'Paradise' and Myrmecophila lyonsii is a large plant that produces a head of lilac colored flowers.  The flowers have different orientations but that is due to the fact that the Myr. lyonsii parent has non resupinate flowers.

  

Myrmecocattleya Rio's Little Treasure (Myrmecophila albopurpurea x Cattleya violacea)

 This cross of Myrmecophyla albopurpurea and Cattleya violacea is beautiful and apparently easier to grow than either species.  The flowers are larger than the Myrmecophila parent but smaller than the Cattleya.   Cattleya violacea is notoriously tricky to cultivate and many times it can grow well and bloom for a time only to start to go downhill and die.  My experience with Myr. albopurpurea is that it has failed to thrive and eventually died.   This plant doesn't seem to be as delicate as the parents.  

Dendrobium culture: Observations on the color of the mature canes in some Dendrobium species when exposed to strong light

Many Dendrobium need high light to bloom at their best, but the way they respond to it varies depending on the species.  My Den. nobile blooms with larger flowers with richer color when the canes are getting so much sun that they take a yellowish tint.   On the other hand, the Dendrobium primulinum from Laos produces larger flowers when the canes are exposed to full sun and turn purple.    Den anosmum doesn’t change color too much even when exposed to full sun, perhaps the canes are just a bit lighter green color.  I haven’t noticed a color change in the canes of Den devonianum, but the flowers of my plant which is exposed to full sun for hours in the morning show very pale color in the sepals and petals, so pale that it can make one think the flowers are not of devonianum unless one looks closely.  My newly acquired plant of Dendrobium ceraula shows a deep purple tint on the side of the cane that receives the sun and green on the side that is under the shade of the leaves.  In my experience Dendrobium cucullatum becomes yellowish and stunted if exposed to too much sun.   

Dendrobium culture: A shade house for Dendrobium anosmum

Dendrobium anosmum needs exposure to full sunlight to bloom well.   But too much sun burns the plants.   I build this wooden shade house so that I could grow my plants in a place where they got the right balance of sun/shade.   The shade house was oriented so its longest axis was perpendicular to the sunrise in the spring/autumn equinox.   It was eight feet tall so that the long canes of the Dendrobiums could hang down without touching the ground.  It was 10 feet long and four feet wide.  To shield the orchids from the harsh midday sunlight a camo fabric was used.   In places I also used black shade fabric.  Notice the camo fabric has a multitude of holes.  This made a pattern of sunlight and shadow that moved across the plants during the hottest parts of the day.   The desired effect was to achieve something similar to the way sunlight is naturally filtered by the leaves in the forest.

 But the key thing of the shade house was its open sides.  To the east of the shade house there were few trees, so the Dendrobium and other plants would get full strength sunlight from about 8 am to 11 am.   The west side of the shade house faced the closed canopy of the forest, so after midday, the plants were in the shade.   This mimics what happens in the natural habitat, where a plant that is growing in the side of a tree can get plenty of sunlight during part of the day and its on the shade after that.

 I used to have many of plants of Den anosmum.  So many plants that when the shade house was full, I could grow plants that needed lower light levels under the Dendrobium.    I hung the Den anosmum in the east side of the shade house and in the center of the structure, these were the areas that received the most intense sunlight for the longest time.   Under the Dendrobium, in the ground I grew Phaius, Calanthe, Phaiocalanthe, Cymbidium, Paphiopedilum, Vanda and Angraecum.   The shade was narrow to maximize the plants exposure to light while protecting them from the midday sun. 

 During the rainy season, in the afternoon the sky would get cloudy and it would rain, this would reduce the intensity of light in the afternoon.    But in the dry season there would be very sunny days, uninterrupted by any clouds, and this threatened the plants with sunburn, even those that were in their resting phase.  To avoid this, I would put a few old dry palm fronds on the roof of the shade house.  This reduced the level of light to tolerable levels.

When the Dendrobium were ready to bloom, they were moved to the terrace.  You can see the result in the photo below.

The wooden shade house was destroyed by a tropical storm.  It was rebuilt, much stronger, now made of two inch metal pipes.  This one lasted until Hurricane Maria dropped the top of a Teak tree on it.

Brassia culture: Brassia Edvah Loo, how I lost a specimen plant

I used to have an enormous specimen plant of Brassia Edvah Loo ‘Nishida”.   When it was in full bloom, it was something to behold.  The flowers were more than 30 centimeters tall, and the plant produced dozens of them in six large inflorescences.   Sadly, I lost my plant.  How?  I decided to divide it in several smaller pieces.  Up to that point my experience with Brassia was that they rarely got sick, grew fast and were problem free.   But this Brassia showed me there are exceptions to everything.

Because the lead growths were growing over the edge of the pot, I divided the plant in pieces with two to three pseudobulbs and a lead growth.   I gave some pieces away, others I potted some I mounted in fern poles.  To my horror every single piece died.  They didn’t all die at the same time.  What happened was that they stopped growing vigorously.   Some rotted away, others produced smaller and smaller pseudobulbs until they died.  To this day I cannot figure out what happened.  By the way I sterilize with fire every tool I use to cut the stems of the orchids, so it probably wasn’t a pathogen that was accidentally introduced to the plant during the process of dividing it.  

After that depressing experience, I no longer divide specimen plants that way.  What I do is I take a piece from the specimen plant and pot it separately So I have a spare in case it gets sick.   My experience with specimen plants is that as they grow larger, they can naturally divide themselves into pieces as the older parts of the stem die off.   In some cases, like my experience with Paphiopedilum, the stem can divide in separate pieces and yet the roots are joined in a hard root ball so that they cannot be separated without doing horrendous damage to the roots.  In those cases, I take out the old decayed potting material from the root mass and fill the spaces with fresh material.  

Growing an orchid specimen plant takes patience, dedication and consistent care.  It is a huge investment of time and effort.   Damaging the roots of specimen plants should be avoided.  It can severely set back the plant or even kill it.    On a closing note, don't give in to people begging for pieces!!  Send them to a vendor.