Orchid blog
This blog is dormant at the moment, but it is still getting a lot of visitis so I will keep it up for you guys as a resource. My future adventures will be published on my new blog, hope to see you there!
My focus… if pressed to name favorites it would have to be orchids of the Pleurothallid Alliance. But a Paphiopedilum was the first orchid I ever fell in love with so slipper orchids will always be close to my heart, and while we are on the subject I might as well disclose a love affair with Neofinetia as well.
Stelis sp.
This is one of my favorite Stelis species. I just adore the deep blood red color and the fine light hairs on the perfectly shaped flowers. Most Stelis have this shape, three symmetrically rounded sepals that form a triangle with the column, small petals and small lip in the center. I grow it rather bright and humid, mounted on EpiWeb in the cool vivarium. It is sharing the mount with several different species of tropical moss and I [...]
Lepanthes hermansii
This is a very happy and proud time for me as an orchid grower. I have sooo many lovely Lepanthes in bud or bloom right now that I have not had time to photograph them all - let alone blog about them! It is a fairly recent fascination of mine, Lepanthes, but it has quickly become a passionate one. Lepanthes is very a large genus of miniature orchids with about 700+ recorded species (and probably hundreds more out there), [...]
Leptotes bicolor
Leptotes is a very small orchid genus of only nine species from Brazil, Paraguay or Argentina. Five of the recorded species have been described as late as this millennium, so perhaps it is not so strange that they are quite rare in cultivation. But still I cannot help wondering why this is such an under appreciated genus. Leptotes bicolor is a lovely epiphyte from the subtropical rainforests and coastal mountains of Brazil and Paraguay where it grows at elevations of 500 [...]
Dracula rezekiana
This lovely Dracula has been blooming for me non-stop since last summer. The four flower spikes just keep on producing new flowers one after the other. You can see the next bud on deck behind the flower in the photos. I really love the classic Dracula "monkey face" along with the spiky hairs of the flowers... they look like icicles or tiny stalactites. The plant stands about 15 cm tall and the flowers measure about 2 [...]
Brutal beauty at its best
This amazing creation has been well worth waiting for... I have been watching the scary looking buds swell for weeks now and finally the amazing, fleshy and brutal creations have opened! It is something straight out of an H.R. Giger painting ...or perhaps Little Shop of Horrors - and I love it!! I knew what the flowers were supposed to look like when I bought it from Ecuagenera last spring, but it is something else to [...]
Masdevallia constricta
It is not hard to see how this Masdevallia got its name. The elegantly compressed sepaline tube is very distinct and somewhat reminiscent of a swan's neck. Although I find the shape curiously intriguing, what is most impressive about this species is the sheer size of the flower in comparison to the plant. The flower is held well above the leaves and the long and graceful sepaline tails span far beyond the foliage of the plant itself. The last [...]