Some new flowers

Thing have been quiet on this blog again lately, but not so much on the balcony (and certainly not in Life!) - plenty has been in bloom, several plants for the first time!

First up, Masdevallia Snowbird (M. tovarensis x M. meijiana), which has lovely, white, long lasting blooms that - at least in my plant - are scented with a lovely mix of a clovey-cinnamon spice together with a floral scent that reminds me of jasmine. You'll notice it within a few feet of the plant, and definitely if you put your nose anywhere near it! This one hasn't flowered for me before, but when it got around to it, it certainly put on a show!

Masdevallia Snowbird

Masdevallia Snowbird

It's grown a fair bit since I received it just over a year and a half ago (wow, time flies!).

Another first time bloomer is my small Dendrochilum wenzelii, which when well established can put on quite a show. This is one of the plants Senior Management noted - at last year's (2011) EPOS Show - would be allowed into the OOAB house if one happened to find its way home. It did, mysteriously. :)

Dendrochilum wenzelii

Dendrochilum wenzelii

Next we have our Dendrobium kingianum that went absolutely crazy with flowers this year - sadly, they don't last too long. There were a lot more flowers than last year - clearly the "it's kind to be cruel" rule of withholding winter water in (many) Dendobiums works well with this species. Sadly, my plan to take more photos of it once more flowers had opened never happened, but the profusion of buds gives a good indication of the show it put on for us!

Dendrobium kingianum

Dendrobium kingianum

NOID mini Phalaenopsis

You may remember this mini Phalaenopsis from last year - it's back in bloom again this year; I think I need to step up my fertiliser dosing for the phalaenopsis (I tend to cater for the more delicate plants more in my regular watering, so fertiliser is minimal). 

And now for some non-orchids (gasp!)

This is one of Senior Management's favourite plants and its blooms stay open for a very short time indeed, so I thought I'd try and take a picture that might make a nice desktop backgroud. If you'd like to see some awesome time lapse footage of similar plants opening, have a look over at Plantgasm's Timelapse section.

Although commonly known as Amaryllis, these are in fact a cultivar of Hippeastrum.

I'm not sure what this little semi-succulent plant is, but I just love the anthers.
It has a slightly odd, pungent garlicky smell when in bloom.

As always, don't forget you can click on any of the pictures if you'd like to see a larger version!

Mystery Dendrobium identified!

In my previous post, I pointed out an orchid we found at the August 2011 EPOS Show that Senior Management and I both agreed was really rather attractive. To refresh your memory, it was this one:

Of course, being good orchid addicts, we wrote the name down on a scrap of paper. I distinctly remember it being long and unwieldy! Like a particularly absent-minded orchid addict, I then cunningly lost said scrap of paper. After being reminded of how great this flower was while crafting the last post, I thought I'd make an effort to find out what it was. Next time, I will cunningly photograph the labels of plants I like. I have yet to lose a camera... Actually, plant, label, plant, label seems like a good way of photographically documenting a flower show, so you don't end up with lots of unlabelled pictures!

My first thought was to ask the orchid addicts at Orchid Board. One of the users pointed out that OrchidWiz was probably a good place to have a look for this plant. Given the shape of the flowers, and after some false leads looking at things with Dendrobium delicatum in them, I started to strongly suspect the influence of Dendrobium tetragonum somewhere in it's ancestry. I looked at every single cross I could find a picture of with that in its ancestry within OrchidWiz, but the only cross that had a picture that looked vaguely like this was Den. Ellen, a primary hybrid of Dendrobium kingianum and Dendrobium tetragonum. It wasn't quite the right shape or colour, but it was the closest I could get based on the pictures in Orchidwiz. Unfortunately, as comprehensive as it might be, even the mighty OrchidWiz doesn't have photos of every orchid ever flowered, and I couldn't find an orchid that quite matched.

Eventually, I considered it time to harass some people, so I thought "I bet someone at the orchid society knows what it is", so I emailed the secretary. He prompty emailed back asking if it was his plant that won 3rd place in its category, attaching a photo. I had a closer look at the photo, and lo and behold, they matched:

Photo courtesy Johan Gauche
Compare the uppler left bloom with the photos above;
you should find the orientation, shape and colour of the blooms matches.

(L) crop of Johan's picture (R) crop of mine:
Match!

So this mystery plant is no longer a mystery!

Hello, Dendrobium Kathryn Banks 'Mottled' x Den. kingianum ('Boundary King' x 'Sparkles').

That is a rather unwieldy name, so I looked up the cross in OrchidWiz. Apparently, Den. Kathryn Banks x Den. kingianum is Dendrobium Kathking - so, put simply, the orchid above is Dendrobium Kathking, the other information being very precise details of its lineage! Incidentally, I managed to find a picture of one of its progenitors - an awarded Dendrobium kingianum cultivar called Dendrobium kingianum 'Sparkles' HCC/AOS - you can find a picture at the AOS website, here. I was unable to find the other named cultivars through Google's image search. I had a quick hunt around online to see if anyone had registered this particular cross as a cultivar (i.e. if it was called Dendrobium Kathking 'SomeFreakyName'), but I couldn't find one.

Oh, and remember Dendrobium Ellen? Well, that's one of it's grandparents!

OrchidWiz's entry on Dendrobium Kathking.
Note the ancestry at the top.
Examples of original ancestors are pictured bottom right;
Dendrobium kingianum (photo by Lourens Grobler),
Dendrobium tetragonum (photo by OrchidWiz).

It is quite surprising how dominant the shape of Den. tetragonum (click to see picture at IOSPE) seems to be in its progeny; this plant is effectively 12.5% tetragonum and 87.5% kingianum, yet the rather longer petals and sepals of tetragonum seem to come through quite strongly. Here's a picture of my Den. kingianum so you get an idea of what I'm talking about: 

Dendrobium kingianum.
Note the rounder, shorter petals and sepals.

Now we shall see if we can aquire one - apparently, Johan got his from Caro-Lin orchids in Port Elizabeth. Thanks for solving the mystery, Johan!

OOAB Blooms Spring #1

I have, alas, continued in my plague theme of being far too busy to muck about with plant photography and blog posts; there have been quite a few nice blooms come and go here at OOAB HQ. I did manage to snap a few pictures of them here and there - sometimes only with a cellphone camera, but here they are nonetheless!

Beallara Peggy Ruth Carpenter 'Everglades'
(Bllra. Tahoma Glacier x Milt. Purple Queen)
Taken way back in September

This plant has recently re-bloomed; the flower looks better coloured this time (last time the inflorescence had several crowded blooms; this time just one - see below) - although Senior Management reminds me that the colour fades as the flower gets older, and the picture above was of fairly old blooms.

This plant seems very easy to grow and keeps throwing out new growths like crazy - it's starting to look quite crowded in its pot and may be ripe for a spot of dividing. One thing I was surprised at is if you stick your nose right in the flower and sniff, it smells very much like freshly ground white pepper. I've decided I quite like the idea of fragrant orchids, so I often "stop to smell the flowers". Apparently some of the other closely related hybrids smell of pepper strongly enough to fill the room with that scent.
Senior Managemetn and I really like the crazy petals both in their blotching and twisted shapes, but I'm sure orchid judges - those whimsical arbiters of "greatness" - would hate their deviance from perfection!

Zelglossoda Calico Gem 'Green Valley #1'

This is a great little plant that Senior Management saw at the local florist and decided we must have. I had spotted it a few days earlier and been sorely tempted by its deep purple flower buds, but Senior Management had strongly hinted that there is little space at OOAB HQ for new aquisitions, so I sadly passed it by. Imagine my delight when it showed up a few days later in bloom as a gift! Unfortunately, it didn't have a label and was a NOID for a little while. Shortly after we got it, I thought I should take it to the next EPOS meeting in case anyone had any idea what it was. It turned out that local orchid vendors Caro-Lin remembered selling this to the local florist, and so a few days later, I was given the name of this charming little plant.

Aerangis fastuosa

We took this Aerangis fastuosa plant along with the Zelglossoda above to the September EPOS meeting. One member remarked to me that we should have taken it to the annual show, where he considered it would have done very well in miniature or African sections - of course, stubbornly, not a single flower was open in time for the annual show. In the end, it won best species on the plant table at the meeting, joining the ranks of our plants other people think are quite good (the other being our Rhynchostylis coelestis)! This plant is remarkably strongly scented, like jasmine - almost overpoweringly so in a small car, particularly as the scent is strongest in the early evening; precisely when we climb into the car to go to EPOS meetings! I really like the delicate white flowers. I'm thinking about mounting this plant when I can find something to mount it on; the flowers would display much better.

Finally, here is our Dendriobium kingianum, one of our original orchids (prior to the fateful trip to Exotic Plant Company nearly a year ago) - i.e. before full blown orchid mania struck!

Dendrobium kingianum

These plants have an amazing variety of different lip and flower patterns - some people have literally hundreds of them! They're quite tough, forgiving orchids - pretty good beginner plants in my opinion - although their flowers are quite modest in size. I think they smell like hyacinths (not a smell I particularly enjoy).

I'll add another post a bit later with some more - spring time is good to us around these parts!

Re-shuffle, Re-plant, Re-decorate...

After getting a light meter, we've started some re-organising at OOAB, as I don't feel some of the plants are getting enough light. We also did some fairly major re-potting to our little succulent collection over the weekend, as several were straining their pots or otherwise looking sad. Here are some pictures of the results quickly snapped this morning, and a closer look at some of the plants.

"Shadecloth" (net curtain) added, we moved (L-R)
Cymbidium 2328 (Annie Kelly 'New Horizon' x Enzan Shining 'Geyserland')
Dendrobium kingianum
Laeliocattleya Tropical Treat C0341
Slc. Kararizi Dawn 'Red Star'
Also: payday and big queue for bank (in the street)!

I'm also thinking the Ascocentrum and Rhyncostylis might like to move closer to the light, and perhaps some of the other light-lovers - but we need more space there... Will have to Build Something! This side (pic above) of the balcony gets an hour or two of direct sunlight in the afternoon; we added some net curtain to help diffuse this a bit.

As a result of the move,
the "orchid shelf" is looking a little more barren
(also the Oncidium is currently on quarantine in the bathtub,
until I'm sure the black fly are dead).

In non-orchid news (bear with me, Orchidophiles!)...

On a trip around Sunnyside Garden Centre in Grahamstown (main purpose: obtain sand for making potting mix and new larger planters for succulents), we found some bags of fluorite/calcite stones at the bargain price of R30 each. These have now been artfully arranged around the succulent collection, which gets several hours of morning sun. Kind of hard to see in the picture, but I'm assured it looks Awesome. Will have to play with the lighting sometime to see if it can be rendered so on camera! As with pretty much all the photos on the blog, clicking on the picture will take you to a larger size so you can see what's going on.

Lots 'o Rocks (and plants).

Repotted succulents
Transplanted succulent seedlings (bonsai pot rear left)
New succulent seeds (under glass)

Not sure what this is, but I like the leaves a lot.
Has been flourishing since moving into this pot a few months ago.

Fockea edulis
This little plant had filled it's tiny old pot right up.
Time for more space!

Four of the baobab seedlings, coming along nicely.

First baobab to sprout, in supplied bonsai pot, new leaves opening.

Our African violet has come into bloom again, yay!
I imagine it's enjoying all the humidity it gets now.

One of our 2 Tillandsia caput-medusae bulbosa.
I'd like to find some bark or similar to mount them on.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...!

The three Disa bivalvata we unflasked a few weeks back seem to be doing OK; here's an updated picture from this morning:

Disa bivalvata community pot

And one of our Paphiopedilum is about to open a new flower:

Paphiopedilum Onyx