masdevallia

[masdevallia]

Here's a reblog of that Gymnocalycium when it bloomed a couple years ago.

Another view

[masdevallia]

This is for any would-be cactus enthusiast that didn’t know where to start. I bought this Gymnocalycium (papschii or closely-related hybrid) around 2.5 years ago, and since then it has been one of the most reliably blooming plants that I own. As one might expect from a cactus, it seems to feed off of heat and punishing sunlight, and the hotter and brighter it is, the more it thrives. Given those conditions, it blooms basically constantly between June and August, with one flower coming up nearly immediately after the previous one fades. 

Like most cacti, the blooms open at dawn and fall away at dusk on the same day, so it’s sometimes difficult to catch them if you aren’t paying a lot of attention. The flowers are a spectacular, near-perfect white, and the diameter usually matches that of the entire plant. 

You can also see that it is sending little buds off all around itself, so in another couple years I will have that many more little tiny Gymnocalyciums (to give away). Last winter I accidentally let this cactus dry completely out, which it’s not a massive fan of, and consequently the dermis on the smaller pups died. I was worried that they would not be viable at all, but you can see that they’re starting to grow out again, despite being all-but-dead, which attests to the durability of this particular specimen. 

I haven’t tried leaving it outside in extreme cold, nor will I, but it’s a compact grower so it is no problem bringing it inside for the winter. It also hasn’t seemed to ever need any sort of acclimation. As soon as it’s warm enough to stick it outside, I stick it outside in the glaring sun, and it goes about its business. 

A lot of cacti are sort of fussy about water regulation, which is why I have tended to stick mostly with opuntioids (because they are basically the opposite), but this seems to be more on the thirsty end of the spectrum both during dormancy and moreso during growth. The spines aren’t particularly spiny, and on Gymnocalyciums they wrap around the body, so I just give it a little squeeze every now and then and if it isn’t rigid, I give it some water. That relationship seems to be fine with both of us. 

[masdevallia]

Just regarding your post from September 6, 2012, that is a intergeneric hybrid- Bollopetalum Midnight Blue [sic] 'Cardinal Roost'. Its parents are thus: Bollea violacea x Zygopetalum B.G. White [sic]. Also, even if your plant came with a tag, it probably didn't say this. Mine said it was a Zygopetalum, but this particular release was from this intergeneric cross. Just letting you know :)

This is fantastic information and thank you anon for sharing! I am going to update my records! I KNEW it was an intergen but I didn't know the parentage!

[masdevallia]

This is the first time my Neostylis has bloomed in two years. The flowers have a single but pervasive fragrance of lilac or lily. The long curved spurs curling back behind the flowers are full of nectar.

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[masdevallia]

I'll try to get a higher resolution of this in the future, but imagine my surprise when I take the Hoya curtisii down to water and it has one lone bunch o' blooms on it. I've never had this one bloom before, and honestly didn't expect it because I don't take great care of it, and it's reputed to being a particularly hard one to get to bloom.

I'm also very surprised by the shape, the shooting star-style flowers are uncommon among Hoyas in general. Like most Hoyas, the flowers are powerfully fragrant at night, and become completely scentless during the daytime. These are not as pungent as many others, having a delicate, actually pleasant subtle sweetness to them. I'm not even sure how long they've been there, nor how long they'll last. But this is very exciting!

[masdevallia]

Another view

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This Gymnocalycium only blooms for a few hours. The flower opened at 1:30, and it will already be gone by dusk.

[masdevallia]

Nymphaea alba at the North Carolina Botanical Gardens, 24 August 2012. 

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Elephantopus tomentosus growing in situ around Chapel Hill, NC. This is one of my favorite flowers. Unfortunately this one had already finished blooming for the year, but when they do, their flowers are pretty, though insignificant, and look like this. It is easy to guess they are members of Asteraceae, the daisy family.

[masdevallia]

Here's a better picture of the Cycnodes, in better light, with more blooms opened.

[masdevallia]

This is my most consistent bloomer, bar none. Cycnodes is called a "nothogenus" because it indicates that this orchid in question is an intergeneric hybrid. What that means is that it is a cross between two closely aligned, but different, genera. This is quite common in the orchid kingdom, but less so among other flowers. For instance, I'm pretty sure you can't cross a rose with a strawberry even though they are both in subfamily Rosoideae. Anyway. This one, Cycnodes Wine Delight 'Jem' is a cross between Cycnoches lehmannii and Mormodes sinuata. Do you see what they did there? Cycnoches and Mormodes. Cycnoches is a nice looking genus, they are collectively known as the "swan orchids" because some fanciful Victorian believed the flowers looked like nodding or flying swans. 

Mormodes is another very interesting genus. Orchids are, far and away, androgynous as far as flower anatomy is concerned. With very few exceptions, there are no male and female flowers; each flower can be fertilized and produce seed, with many orchid species being self-fertile. In other words, all you have to do is knock the pollinia onto the stigma and boom. Mormodes is not like that. Each plant, given maximum health and perfect growing conditions, will grow female and male flowers at different times. This property was apparently passed on to Cycnodes, at least on occasion, because I got two sets of flowers last year. The female flowers are the ones you see above; big, red, showy, intensely fragrant (sort of like cherry syrup). The male flowers, on the other hand, were like all men: wan, listless, musky, pale, and unimpressive. They also produced so much sap they could hardly even open on their own. I had to use a toothpick to prize the petals apart at the tips. Who knew even male flowers could be unctuous.

For any person who doesn't think they could be an orchid grower because they're "too hard," I would recommend giving Cycnodes a shot. As long as they are potted in well-draining media, they almost can't be overwatered during growing season. If I let even a single day go by without drenching the thing I'd start to see the pseudobulbs start to shrivel. Maxillarias are like that too but that's another story. The best part about Cycnodes is that it requires two distinct seasons. After it blooms and the leaves fall off, you just stop watering it entirely and ignore it. It shrivels up, looks dreadful, many of the roots will die back, you feel a little bad for it. But then, when it starts getting warmer and sunnier, it'll poke out a new leaf tip, and then you just start soaking the thing and it will be like it can't grow too many new roots. 

Plus I like anything with super fragrant flowers. The flowers aren't even completely open yet, which means that the scent hasn't come anywhere near reaching its peak, and I can stand at the top of the stairs and their cherry soda fragrance is all I can smell. The picture doesn't even really capture how deep red the flowers are, and they're very thick and waxy. Just gorgeous.

Over the past few days this thing has been under attack by spidermites and I have no idea where they even goddamn came from. I filled a sprayer with 91% isopropanol and just coated the sucker, and now they are all gone. That's another thing to say about waxy flowers: alcohol doesn't damage them as easily. 

[masdevallia]

Summer brought a whole lot of nothing as far as flowers were concerned. I also had a few fatalities which inevitably come with a big move; at least we moved to a region that had a climate that is a TEENSY bit (read: a ton) more amenable to orchids' tastes, so just over the past couple months I've already had an explosion of new growth. We'll see if that translates to more flowers in the winter and spring, even though at this point all of my winter bloomers are done for and if anything else blooms in the winter it'll be off season for it. One can still hope.

This one is some sort of Zygopetalinae; it wasn't labeled so I can never be for sure, but I have it in my books as Zygonisia Cynosure 'Blue Birds'. Of course I'd never claim that in any sort of official capacity, but it looks REMARKABLY similar to other specimens that are confirmed as Cynosure, and that name is a lot catchier than "Unlabeled Zygopetalum hybrid." There really aren't, to my knowledge, too many hybrids of Zygopetalum just because there aren't really too many species of Zygopetalum, and the ones that exist are all very similar in appearance. Zygo. maculatum, Zygo. mackaii, Zygo. graminifolium, and Zygo. intermedium, for instance, are remarkably similar. Likewise, the presumptive hybridizer, Acacallis/Aganisia cyanea, has a distinctive shape that I believe I see present in these petals. Plus, every pure Zygopetalum has dappled green/brown tepals and a purple labellum, and this has a purple labellum but dappled white and purple tepals (a quality of Acacallis cyanea). Then again, it is always easier to conjecture when you are already assuming the outcome you want.

Regardless, it is intensely fragrant, just like its presumptive forebears in Zygopetalum, and presents itself, with little variance, in purple and violet tones dappled with white, which is a color combination I find most appealing. The blooms exclusively come in twos, but sometimes there will be more than one spike from the same pseudobulb, resulting in multiples thereof. I originally had two spikes on here, but a shock of poor weather made the tank oppressively dark and humid, which killed one of the spikes when it was most sensitive. Alas, there is always next year.

[masdevallia]

You may recall, only a couple months ago, I had given up on this thing as dead. Well, what a difference a fresh sterile potting medium can make! After repotting it, it set about blooming nearly immediately, with three new canes shooting up in short order afterwards. Additionally, there are two keikis forming: one on a dormant cane, and another near the base of the same cane that is blooming. This one is one of my all-time favorites, Dendrobium Green Lantern, which is a mix of Den. cruentum and Den. formosum (I believe a 75-25 mix).

I did have a minor mishap where I dropped my watering can on the new growths. I'm still not sure whether they're going to die (again, ugh) or power through. It was more than a week ago and it seems to be holding steady. Hopefully the growing core was not damaged and I'll only get a little bit of die-back on the outermost leaves, but honestly it's too soon to tell. If it hasn't grown any more in a month I'll know that the new canes are toast. But hey, at least the keikis are doing well!

[masdevallia]

This was sold to me, in November, as Dendrobium anosmum. I had no reason to doubt the seller; he grows, shows, and sells orchids for a living. He seemed to know what he was talking about. Besides, it looked like a Den. anosmum; how many pendulous Dendrobiums can there be? 

Well, I noticed last night when I was watering it that the buds were opening. This was very surprising to me, because they hardly had any color to them, I figured I had at least another couple weeks before they darkened to the characteristic lilac color that I expect Den. anosmum buds to be. I shrugged it off, initially, as this being some strange, lighter-colored cultivar (which was annoying in and of itself, because I wanted an ordinary, species, Den. anosmum).

Imagine my surprise this morning when I go in to water it again, and the buds have fully opened to reveal... It is not Den. anosmum at all. I had been sold Den. aphyllum. This was really disappointing because I sought out Den. anosmum, I bought this plant from this guy because it was a blooming-size specimen of Den. anosmum, and there was evidence that it had already bloomed, in which case he should have been able to tell that it was not Den. anosmum. The two flowers look nothing alike. For one, Den. aphyllum has a fuzzy yellow labellum. 

This is, nevertheless, a beautiful flower. You can tell I didn't winter it long enough because it's still got leaves, but that didn't evidently interrupt its willingness to bloom this spring. There are not nearly as many blooms as there should be because I had a slug get to it over the winter, destroyed every single flower bud on one of the canes before I caught it. Those things can do some major damage overnight, as this one did. Oh well, until next year I suppose. There are some keikis growing off of this one that I will eventually break off and repot, so if anybody's interested in a Den. aphyllum, I'll have some to spare at some point.

The saddest part is that this seller had a lot of plants that were interesting, but if he sells mislabeled plants, I won't be buying any more from him. This is just not acceptable in the orchid trade.

Edited to add: Because of the absolute frustrating endeavor that labeling orchids turns out to be, even calling this Den. aphyllum seems to be incorrect. Like Den. pierardii as well, these all seem to be incorrect labels applied variously to different plants at different times, and it seems that it is now, actually, called Den. cucullatum. I hate everything.

[masdevallia]

I’m just going to do a post spam here, I’ve had these pictures piling up on my phone for a while and finally got around to dumping them onto the computer.

This one is a rose, obviously, of the Portland variety (I’ll often call it a Damask, but evidently the two are different), called Comte de Chambord. I didn’t do any fiddling with the colors in this photo whatsoever, they really are that intense. They’re actually a bit more intense in real life, but this photo really did a pretty good job capturing the color. They are also intensely fragrant; the entire bush is in bloom right now and you get knocked over by the most beautiful rose scent you can imagine as soon as you walk out the back door.

[masdevallia]

This one is a Hybrid Tea rose called Garden Party. It is a very pure white rose, with the tips of the petals kissed in pink. Even on the same bush, at the same time, some will be pinker than others; I have no idea why. It is also scented, though not nearly as crazy strong as the Comte de Chambord. These roses smell like how I sort of conceptualize how roses “should” smell. Not overpowering, but not entirely scentless either (like the long stem cut roses).

I never understand why anybody would want to spend 20 or 30 dollars on a dozen cut roses when you can just grow roses and have them in great abundance for 6-8 months out of the year. There is remarkably little time during the year when roses  don’t grow; some varieties even thrive in USDA Zone 3, which is god damn freezing if you ask me.