Paphiopedilum Onyx

Our Paphiopedilum Onyx is in bloom again. Clearly we're doing something right! The plant has loads of new growth and was repotted a few months ago (most paphs enjoy annual repotting). The flower spike is surprisingly tall. Paph. spikes seem to be quite easy to "bruise", although it did have a rough time in the car on the way to the EPOS meeting last week, falling over several times before I found that it fit quite happily in the cup holder. Fortunately nothing broke! Strangely, I have another plant of this type that shows no sign of flowering, yet is cared for essentially identically.

Paphiopedilum Onyx

Paph. Onyx, detail of staminode

Paph. Onyx, Staminode and pollinium

Paph. Onyx, Leaf Detail

The guest speaker, Hendrelien Peters (who coincidentally saw this plant last year in February too), noted that the staking could be improved by holding the flower by the ovary at the back (rather than lower down as I had it); this would pull the flower more upright; the ideal paph to an orchid judge would pretty much be a perfectly vertical round circle with a pouch on it! 

This plant not only has great flowers, but is one of my favourite orchids out of bloom too, thanks to its blocky variegated leaves. Paphs make quite good windowsill houseplants (these so called "Maudiae-type" [like this Onyx] paphs particularly so), as long as they don't get direct sunlight or get too dry. If you want something a bit different to a phalaenopsis for a fairly forgiving plant, try a paph!  If you're short on space, many of them are quite compact growers (unlike Phragmipedium). I'd quite like to get a so-called "vinicolor" paph, which has burgundy red-ish blooms, and often purpleish leaves at some stage in the near future.

Restrepia trichoglossa in bloom

Recently, I've been a bit worried about one of my early birthday presents, a Restrepia trichoglossa. The plant has been looking a bit under the weather (see this thread on Orchid Board). However, I think I have "New Parent Syndrome" and might be unduly worried at every sign of slight upset-ness my precious plants display! In fact, the plant seems happy enough to be throwing out both keikis and now flowers (although these might just be an ailing plant's last, best hope for life after death...!).

I really like these little plants and could definitely see myself owning more... They don't take up much room and have very nifty flowers. This one has a pimpin' pinstripe suit (in funky disco colours), and I bet those "antennae" could get great reception!

Enough words for now - here are some pictures! :)

Restrepia trichoglossa
Bloom on 04 April 2011

Restrepia trichoglossa
Keiki with developing flower

Restrepia trichoglossa
Another keiki.

If my scientific Latin/latinised Greek doesn't fail me, trichoglossa means "hairy tongue"! If you click on the first picture and look at the macro full screen, you'll see that there is indeed a "hairy tongue" on this flower. I might get around to a 2:1 macro of it at some stage See below! I'm not quite sure why the keiki roots seem to be growing upwards - this seems rather odd to me! Once they get a bit longer, I might consider taking them off the mother plant and giving them each their own pot (or perhaps trying one out on some EcoWeb); for now, they get a daily mist to hopefully keep them happy and moist.

Restrepia trichoglossa
2:1 macro of the "hairy tongue"

Given my current concerns over the health of this plant, I'm probably not best placed to give cultural advice, but here are some generalised "tips" for growing Restrepia, culled from my reading here and there.

Restrepia, like most (all?) "pleurothallid alliance" plants, like to be kept fairly damp ("not wet!") and cool - but without suffocating the roots with too much water. Fairly high humidity is usually good for them too, particularly coupled with some airflow from a fan. They will tolerate fairly low light levels; their "ideal" light (the high end) will make the leaves turn slightly reddish (plant sunscreen!). Andy's Orchids recommends 500-1500 foot candles for this species, with Restrepia in general ranging from 500-3000 foot candles. Restrepia can either be grown in pots or mounted; I suspect mounting will only be successful if you're very vigilant with your watering regime and have fairly high (>70% RH) humidity in your growing area. Air movement is apparently important, although not quite as widely mentioned as in Masdevallia culture. I water mine daily with RO water; it's potted in sphagnum moss. Like most pleurothallids, it probably does best with very weak but regular fertiliser doses. I imagine these do very well in humid, cool orchidaria (something I'm contemplating building, but don't know where it would fit!).

An interesting thing about Restrepia is that they'll happily root from leaf cuttings, much like an African Violet - usually in the node where you can see keikis developing in the photos above. With the notable exception of the fairly rare and challenging R. chacoensis, apparently. If you'd like to see how a fellow blotanical blogger M3ma1d does this with African Violets, have a look at the Fuzzy Foliage post on Starting African Violets from Leaves with its embedded step-by-step video. Obviously, Restrepia aren't African Violets, so you might want to choose a slightly different potting medium (Sphagnum moss is probably good)!

I'll leave you with this backlit picture of the flower; when I had it in a beam of sunlight whilst taking the 2:1 macros quickly this morning, there was an amazing crystalline look to the flowers as the light shone through it; hopefully this picture captures some of that!

Backlit Restrepia trichoglossa
Make sure you look at the larger version
(click on it)

Plant Update - new spikes! New Flowers!

I took some pictures on Sunday afternoon of some progress at OOAB HQ.

First up, our lovely Stenoglottis S0703 (Sten. Saturn 'Electric' x Sten. woodii 'Gous') has finally flowered after watching three spikes slowly grow. The spottiness of the leaves carries on into the flowers!

I've since found out this cross is called Stenoglottis Ganymede - quite a good name seeing as Ganymede is one of Saturn's moons!

Stenoglottis Ganymede spike - one of three!

Flowering Triffid Stenoglottis

Stenoglottis Ganymede flower

Stenoglottis Ganymede flower

Not all the flowers on the spikes have opened yet. We're thinking of taking this one to the EPOS meeting on Thursday this week.

Next up, out Rhynchostylis coelestis has not one but two spikes on it. Guess the little bout of fungus or whatever hasn't worried it too much...

Looks like the flowers will be purple-ish or lilac-y. Don't think it'll be open by Thursday though!

Yay, buds!

Nearly opening...!

Second spike

Also, the bud on our Paphiopedilum Onyx has opened fully and is more symmetrical that the one on its friend.

Paphiopedilum Onyx

Finally, an update on the progress of our recently (~3 weeks) deflasked seedlings.
Some really hot, dry days took their toll, I think - this was before my propagator arrived, unfortunately, so I think some of them really took strain. They're now happily cocooned in the Garland Big 3 propagator - and I'm keeping a beady eye out for fungus. A few plants in each tray had started obviously dying, so I pulled them out.

Potinara/Rhyncholaeliocattleya(?)
(A18 Blc. Three Sun 'Sun #16' x Pot. Shin Shiang Diamond)
Note the dying seedlings :( 

Brassolaeliocattleya/Rhyncholaeliocattleya(?)
( Blc. A17 Blc. Chian-Tzy Salmon x Blc. Shinfong Luoyang 'Gold')
Fewer dying plants.

Not too bad, I think! In less positive news, this morning I finally noticed that our Microcoelia exilis is *covered* in scale, so I spent about 15 minutes scratching it all off with my fingernails - will have to do another once-over later on and keep an eye out for more of those buggers. I also saw a single mealybug on one of the plants and squashed it immediately.

Ascocentrum Mona Church

We bought a lovely Ascocentrum Mona Church in flower from the Exotic Plant Company, and it survived the two day trip in the car, hanging from a headrest (and the week in the holiday accommodation) unscathed. Judging from the label attached to it, this specimen came from RF Orchids in Florida (USA), and is a hybrid of Ascocentrum miniatum (syn. garayi) x Ascocentrum ampullaceum. These Genus of about 6 species of orchids is native to southeast Asia and the Phillipines and prefer a fairly warm climate (as you'd expect, given where they come from).

Like most of our orchids, they're epiphytic, but apparently they really don't like being grown in any kind of medium; they're potted straight into baskets with no potting medium at all (like our Rhynchostylis). I water them very regularly (by drenching the roots once or twice a day) whilst misting all the plants.

One thing that's quite hard to see in the pictures is a beautiful, almost crystalline pattern inside the petals as the light shines through from the back of the flower.