This is one of the lovely little Neofinetia I bought this from a friend about six weeks ago and it pretty much set a flower spike right away. The flowers are small and slightly rounder with a shorter spur than many other Neos. I love the subtle hints of pink spots in the white flowers too. Some clones have a lot more pink coloration than this apparently. True to form it is also very fragrant, I would say jasmine with hints of coconut and vanilla. The ‘Yodonomatsu’ name means Pine of Yodo. There are many different distinguishing growing types within the different cultivars of Neofinetia falcata. The ‘Yodonomatsu’ is what they call a bean leaf foliage type and the form created at the leaf connection is called Tsuke, or ocean wave. It is a pretty small and compact plant with thick leaves.
I grow mine in the warm vivarium at 26-28 C day (15 night), 85% RH, good air circulation, and a lot of light. But I had about a week (a week ago) when the temp ran away up to about 30 C before I realized it… damn… Everything else in the viv is fine, but this plant is going to drop a few leaves, I wonder if it could have been due to the excessive heat…? Or perhaps transplant chock moving into my viv after being cultivated on the windowsill in moss before. I hope it will recover. Otherwise it has two more shoots that still look OK and three strong new healthy roots. I have read that Neofinetia like cool winters, so I am contemplating moving mine into the cool viv next winter, but I have not decided yet. So far they have done fine warm year round. I guess we’ll see when winter hits, first I am craving summer!
I fixed the temperature in the viv by simply putting some larger spacers between the light and the glass on top. Now there is a lot more air circulation under the light which removes some of the heat and now temp holds at the usual 26-28 C again. I just cut a couple of synthetic wine corks in half and put the light on top. A simple fix, but it works.
