Cirrhopetalum guttulatum

I have a plant that I got about eighteen months ago that is now in bloom. The tag says "Cirrhopetalum guttulatum". OrchidSpecies.com sends me to both "Bulbophyllum guttulatum" and "Bulbophyllum umbellatum". What I have is neither of those.

Can you help me identify it? I like the plant and I like the flowers. I would like it to be properly tagged.

If you can identify this plant well enough so that I can be resonably sure I have a correct tag, I will send you a division. Or, if you have one already, I'll send you something else.

I think that as a collector it is important to know what you have. As time goes by I have (exept Phals) fewer and fewer NOID plants. I would hate to let go of such a nice plant, especially since I actually paid something for it.

Bulbophyllum laxiflorum

In honor of the the thousandth blog post I will give away five orchids today. This is the last of five post that were spaced through the day with a free orchid in each post.

This one is a 4-pseudobulb lead division of Bulbophyllum laxiflorum. This species grows throughout Southeast Asia. It is warm to hot growing, very tropical. The flowers are fragrant and can occur any time of the year. A group of flowers radiate from the end of the spike forming a starburst effect. The genus Bulbophyllum (Bulb) contains 1500 species found in all tropical areas on earth.

The rules are simple: add a comment claiming it and them go to this page to get my direct email address so we can work out the details. Anybody who wants it can have it, no first-time restriction today. Continental US only please. First comment wins. I will pay the postage.

This will come bare-root. It will do best potted but can also be mounted.

Thank you all for reading my blog.

Maxillaria tenuifolia

In honor of the the thousandth blog post I will give away five orchids today. This is the fourth of five post that will be spaced through the day with a free orchid in each post.

This one is a 3-pseudobulb lead division of Maxillaria tenuifolia. This species grows in Mexico and northern Central America. It is cool to hot growing and very fragrant. The genus Maxillaria (Max) contains 650 some species spread throughout the tropical and sub-tropical Americas. They have a single flower. Generally warm to hot growing.

The rules are simple: add a comment claiming it and them go to this page to get my direct email address so we can work out the details. Anybody who wants it can have it, no first-time restriction today. Continental US only please. First comment wins. I will pay the postage.

This will come bare-root. It will do best potted but can also be mounted.

The next post will be in a couple of hours.

Mediocalcar decoratum

In honor of the the thousandth blog post I will give away five orchids today. This is the third of five post that will be spaced through the day with a free orchid in each post.

This one is a several-pseudobulb lead division of Mediocalcar decoratum. This species grows in Papua and New Guinea in moist mountain forests. It is cold to cool growing and blooms in spring. The genus Mediocalcar (Medi) contains about 20 species from New Guinea.

The rules are simple: add a comment claiming it and them go to this page to get my direct email address so we can work out the details. Anybody who wants it can have it, no first-time restriction today. Continental US only please. First comment wins. I will pay the postage.

This will come bare-root. It will do best mounted but can also be potted.

The next post will be in a couple of hours.

Coelogyne fimbriata

In honor of the the thousandth blog post I will give away five orchids today. This is the second of five post that will be spaced through the day with a free orchid in each post.

This one is a 3-pseudobulb lead division of Coelogyne fimbriata. This species grows throughout Southeast Asia in limestone cliffs below 4500 feet. It is cool to hot growing, fragrant and blooms in the fall. Coelogyne (Coel) contains 100 species found in all of Asia east of India and Indonesia and Fiji.

The rules are simple: add a comment claiming it and them go to this page to get my direct email address so we can work out the details. Anybody who wants it can have it, no first-time restriction today. Continental US only please. First comment wins. I will pay the postage.

This will come bare-root. It will do best mounted but can also be potted.

The next post will be in a couple of hours.

Encyclia polybulbon

This is the thousandth post on this blog. I began this blog in 2008 to organize my thoughts about my collection and to write a book to publish on Blurb. I had a lot of flower pictures but I wanted to do some text as well.

The book idea didn't last long but I found that I enjoyed my orchid collection more from writing the blog so I continued.

In honor of the event I will give away five orchids today. Instead of one post, there will be five spaced through the day with a free orchid in each post. They are all small and mountable and will come to you bare-root.

The first is a 5-pseudobulb lead division of Encyclia polybulbon. This species grows from Mexico to Nicaragua and parts of the West Indies. It is miniature, grows cool to hot and is fragrant. This is often listed as Dinema polybulbon. The genus Encyclia (Encycl) contains 240 species that grow throughout all of tropical America and the West Indies. They prefer intermediate conditions and a long, dry winter rest.

The rules are simple: add a comment claiming it and them go to this page to get my direct email address so we can work out the details. Anybody who wants it can have it, no first-time restriction today. Continental US only please. First comment wins. I will pay the postage.

This will come bare-root. It will do best mounted but can also be potted.

The next post will be in a couple of hours.

Blc Hawaiian Treat x C Pastoral Symphony

The plant is in sphagnum over peanuts in a 5-inch clay pot. There are seven pseudobulbs and three new growths and stands about 11 inches above the pot. The flower starts off this color and gets more purple as the flower matures.

When I saw three new growths all at the same stage of development I couldn't help imagining three spikes of multiple flowers at the orchid society show and tell. But the reality is that a lot can happen to a new growth to keep it from growing and blooming.

The easiest is to get water in the new growth and then doesn't dry out before the night time temperature drop. This is especially easy when watering a lot of plants at the same time. I try to be careful, but water gets all over the place no matter how careful I am.

Maxillaria tenuifolia

I have several Maxillaria tenuifolia plants. Four of them are large and the rest are growing divisions. The one that is growing best is the most wet and most hot. I was surprised about how much water the like.

Maxillaria tenuifolia grows in Mexico and northern Central America. It is cool to hot growing and very fragrant. The genus Maxillaria (Max) contains 650 some species spread throughout the tropical and sub-tropical Americas. They have a single flower. Generally warm to hot growing.

Laelia anceps x Cattleya Coquina

I was cleaning up the Sonoma greenhouse the other day. The focus was weak and dead plants in addition to the picking up of leaves and bark.

I hope I have not given the impression that I have a 100% success rate with backbulbs or have not killed my share of plants. I would certainly not rate myself an expert grower. On the other hand, I work with scraps of plants that would get tossed out in most greenhouses.

This plant was one of those scraps. It was the weakest pseudobulb in a pot of weak pseudobulbs. As I walked up to the plant I wondered it it was time to toss it out. There was green but it was faded and it looked as if the water was almost all used up.

Peeking out of the pot was a sprout. When I took it out of the pot I saw that there was more green than I could see from above. I am going to put it back and let it grow a bit more before potting. That is one of the great things about rocks as a medium. You can put it back and settle the rocks around it gently without damaging the plant.

Rhyncholaeliocattleya Haruko Kanzaki

This plant bloomed late last year shortly after I got it from Steve Christoffersen. I was going to leave it alone this year and re-evaluate it next spring.

But when I looked at it closely last week, I saw that the second lead was dead and I could see roots winding around the pot. With the new growth now just right for re-potting, I decided to go ahead and clean it up now.

I soaked the pot in water for a few minutes and after a bit of moving the plant back and forth in the pot, it slid out cleanly without sticking to the pot. I was happy to see that the root ball was not as tight as I thought it would be and I didn't see any dead roots.

I started working the roots loose with just my fingers. No cutting. I pulled out the sphagnum moss and washed a few times, taking it slow. Only after I got the roots untangled and I could clearly see how all the pseudobulbs were attached did I make the first cut. I removed the dead pseudobulb.

Then I looked at the shape of the plant. The plant was more or less in a straight line and I would need a wide pot. Some people might have centered the lead and put it back in the same pot. I decided to take the youngest two pseudobulbs and the new growth as a division.

The other half of the plant. the three backbulbs went back in the original pot. There were good roots and leaves on the pseudobulbs so it is a true division, not a case of sprouting backbulbs. True, a new growth will have to develop but that will happen, probably very soon.