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.
Close encounter of the Greenhood kind
The little Pterostylis sp. that I picked up at the Gothenburg International Orchid Show last weekend is now blooming. The Pterostylis name comes from the Greek words meaning winged column (pteron - a wing, stylis - a column), but the common name is Greenhood after the shape of dorsal sepal. Quite frankly, I think it looks more like an alien than anything else, and it is a very cool little flower. Pterostylis is a terrestrial genus from New Zealand, [...]
Masdevallia vexillifera a Peruvian rarity
I bought this plant last November. But what I had originally ordered as Masdevallia decumana, a lovely little epiphyte from Peru and Ecuador, actually turned out to be Masdevallia vexillifera, a quite rare species from Peru. I noticed already before the bud opened up that it was much too light to be a decumana, but I thought it might be the pallida color form which is much lighter. But once the flower opened up, the lower [...]
Gothenburg International Orchid Show – the complete haul
Alright... here is just a quick rundown of the complete haul from GIOS 2010. Tomorrow I have to pot and mount them all... oh happy times! (Ecuagenera) Porroglossum muscosum, Porroglossum olivaceum, Masdevallia impostor, Masdevallia falcago, Scaphosepalum swertiifolium f. pink, Masdevallia panguiensis, Masdevallia superbiens, Masdevallia macrura, Dracula chestertonii, Dracula andreettae, Dracula gigas, Lepanthes melpomene, Masdevallia coccinea, Masdevallia empusa, Masdevallia exaltata, Masdevallia glandulosa, Masdevallia hortensis, Masdevallia impostor, Masdevallia panguiensis, Masdevallia patula, Masdevallia princeps, Masdevallia rosea, Pleurothallis flexuosa, Pleurothallis megalops. [...]
Gothenburg International Orchid Show – day one
We have spent most of the year, and very intensely the past few weeks, preparing for the largest orchid show in Sweden, GIOS. Myself and a very small but hard working group on the organizing committee are finally getting to enjoy all the fruits of our labor and we have a fantastic show this year. Really!! Today, everything was finally in place. The hall was ready, the exhibition booths were all set and the sellers had soooo many interesting plants ready for sale. Knowing [...]
Masdevallia rolfeana
A very nice Masdevallia endemic to Costa Rica where is grows in the cloud forests from 1400 to 2200 meters. It is fairly tolerant of warmer temperatures and I actually bloomed this on the windowsill in my intermediate growing room before moving it into the cool vivarium in April. The flowers measure about 7 cm and each inflorescence usually produce up to three flowers each in succession. I love both the shape and color of the flowers, [...]
Cool vivarium drain cleaning
Oh, this is really exciting stuff to write about right? Well, he he, these are the day to day maintenance stuff that goes on behind the scenes of running this big vivarium. I noticed the past week that what I first thought was a flair up of the fungus gnats that usually come with the first heat of summer actually was something else. The little tiny fliers in the viv. were not black, they were [...]