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.

Coelogyne pulverula Teijsm. & Binn. 1862, a specimen plant

This orchid was seen the 2018 Puerto Rico Orchid society show.  It is a large and healthy plant with long inflorescences and beautifully colored flowers.  It is labeled Coelogyne dayana "pipping rock".   Coelogyne dayana is a synonym of Coelogyne pulverula.

Bulbophyllum sumatranum Garay, Hamer & Siegrist 1996, now larger than ever

This orchid has totally overflowed the wire basket in which it is growing.  Now many growths are growing on the sides of the baskets or between or over, older growths.  An attempt to start pieces growing in a basket with coconuts chunks was a complete disaster, the plant never bloomed and one really, really wet season, it completely rotted away.  Yes, as unbelievable as it sound it did rot, something that is almost unheard in my collection in which all my Bulbophyllum seem to  tolerate without complaint even the wettest of weathers,  I plant to start transplanting pieces of this orchid to a log of teak wood to see how it will fare growing on this type of mount.  Hopefully it will be more floriferous there.  This clone is prone to bloom unpredictably and erratically, generally between March and May.

The specimen that wasn't

When I go buying orchids I look out for things that are different from what I have in my collection and that are showy and eye catching.    Generally I avoid impulse buying, although I have at times been guilty of buying plants I know nothing about because I am overwhelmed by their beauty.  This is what happened me about a decade ago when I was buying orchids at an orchid show.

The annual orchid show of the Sociedad de Orquidistas de Puerto Rico, is the largest orchid show on the island.  There are plenty of exhibits and many vendors.  In this particular show, one of the vendors had a large plant of Dendrobium spectabile on his table.  The plant had many canes and had several inflorescences.  When I saw it I was in love!  When I asked for the price it turned out the plant was quite expensive.  But that didn’t deter me, I brought it and was very happy with my plant.

The pot and the base of the plant was tightly wrapped with tape, and I surmised that it was so that the potting material would not fall during transport.  But when I arrived at home, I was dismayed to find out that the specimen plant was in fact a bundle of single blooming canes artfully arranged around a small plant that had a single inflorescence.  I was angered and dismayed.  I called the vendor, which was not from the Island, and complained bitterly.  To their credit they said the plant had been sold by mistake by an untrained helper, they offered to refund the money.  That alleviated the monetary loss but I was heartsick about the plant. 

 In my garden things didn’t go well for this orchid, the plant in the center failed to thrive and died relatively quickly for reasons that are not clear.  The single canes rotted and died one by one until only a single one remained.  This cane was large, didn’t have roots, and was leafless.  I gave the cane the kind of tender loving care only an obsessive compulsive orchidist can give to a prized plant and eventually it produced a tiny new cane.  In due course the new cane rooted firmly in the plastic pot where I had planted it.  Then next year it produced a larger cane, and the next year the cane was even larger.  Finally, after several years the orchid bloomed.  I was in ecstasy!

The plant has continued to grow and to bloom faithfully year after year.  Sometimes it blooms twice a year.  I have brought other Den. spectabile plants over the years and all have, for unknown reasons, declined and died.  But the original one continues to thrive, it is indestructible!

To finish this story, I would like to add some advice, if you ever see a plant for sale with many blooming stems, check the bases of the canes.  If they are buried in the media to such a degree that you can’t see the base from where the roots grow, and the media is taped over so that it won’t fall, there is reason to suspect that you are looking at a composite plant made out of two or more plant puts together in a pot.  

Ludisia discolor [Ker-Gawl.] A. Rich. 1825, a specimen plant

I saw this plant of Ludisia discolor in 2007 at a meeting of the Mayaguez Orchid Society.  It was a beautiful plant with many growing points.  This orchid is very easy to grow if you give it the humidity it needs.  My own plant grows very well with the same care I give my houseplants.  The flowers are a nice bonus.

Coelogyne parishii Hook. f. 1862, a specimen plant

In the Puerto Rico orchid society show in San Juan in 2010, this plant won best specimen plant and also was awarded a CCM/AOS of 86 points.  This award recognizes the superior culture of an orchid.  I gave it the clonal name "Juan A, Rivero".   Professor Juan A. Rivero, or the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez,  gave me a two pseudobulb piece of this orchid the first time I visited his garden, in 1984.  This plant has been thriving under my care since that time.  This orchid tendency to produce two leads in each new growth allows it to become a large specimen plant in a relatively short time.  At the moment it was awarded it had 254 flower.  In 2011 it also produced a large quantity of flowers but I had to cut the leaves since they were in a lamentable state, probably due to unusually sunny and dry conditions in my garden.

Bulbophyllum lobbii var, Malacca, blooming with multiple flowers for the second time in 2014

In the past I had tried to grow this orchid without sucess.  In January of 2013, I received this plant and the nominate variety.  Both were treated identically, potted in the same media and in the same type of basket, they were growing side by side.  The nominate type died a low and messy death, the var. Malacca has thrived and blooms very well.  I wonder what is the difference that caused the different outcomes in the cultivation of plants that are essentially identical in their needs.

Dendrobium friedericksianum Rchb.f 1887, a lovely specimen plant in a show in Puerto Rico

This beautiful specimen plant was seen in the 2014 Ponce Orchid society show, Ponce, Puerto Rico.  I had a hybrid of this species  it grew well producing fat and healthy canes.  But every year it would produce only three to four flowers near the tip of the largest cane.  Disappointed with the plant poor performance I assumed it needed a cooler, more temperate climate.  I gave it away to a person that lived in a part of the island where temperatures were more moderate than in the hot coastal lowlands.  Even in the cooler part of the island, the plant didn’t bloom any better.    But as this specimen plant shows,  friedericksianum plants that can both grow and bloom very well in Puerto Rico.  This is the first plant of this species that I have ever seen in a local show.  This is variety suavissimum.

Anolis cristatellus, the camouflage fail of rorschach patterned headed lizard

Generally the local immature Anolis cristatellus are quite a wary bunch.  Given that pretty much every predator around would love to snack on them, including the adult A. cristatellus, their alert demeanor is understandable.   The color of these immature lizards resembles quite closely the leaf litter.  When standing on the forest floor these small lizards are well camouflaged and virtually invisible.  But when these lizards step away from their normal background the color pattern makes them quite conspicuous.  Normally it is not easy to get close to these lizards because they are prone to run away quickly if they become even slightly alarmed.   But this lizard seemed to feel so comfortable perching on the flowers of this Renanthera orchid that it showed an unexpected reluctance to move away.  This allowed me to get close enough to it to take several photos against a background that highlights its camouflage pattern.  The fact that the lizard lacks the tip of its tail means that even a good camouflage is no guarantee of survival in an environment full of hungry and sharp eyed predators.

Lockhartia lunifera (Lindl.) Rchb. f. 1852, an specimen plant

This nicely grown specimen plant of Lockhartia lunifera was seen at the 2013 Orchid Festival of the Mayaguez orchid society.  

Brassia Edvah Loo 'Nishida' specimen plant

All the inflorescences would orient in the direction of the strongest ligh, this caused some to overlap which caused the flowers to become crowded due to their large size.

This orchid produces huge flowers well over one foot tall.  The inflorescences are massive and the fragrance is delightful and powerful.  I used to have this huge specimen which produced amazing displays of flowers when it bloomed.  When it got so large it was difficult to move I decided to divide it.   I cut it in seven pieces and to my horror six of the pieces started dying from rot.  Only a tiny piece, that I had left out and had not potted because it had few roots, survived.  After four years of precarious growth that piece bloomed for the first time this July.  Hopefully it will grow well enough to reclaim its past glory.

Previous to that awful loss of plants, this orchid had proved to be easy to culture, a vigorous grower and a reliable bloomer.  It is not clear why the pieces got rot.   This orchid used to be very common, however it has been some years since I have seen plants of this hybrid shown anywhere.  It would be interesting to know if others have had the same experience I had with this orchid.  I remember seeing some pretty impressive plants shown in orchid group meetings.