Meaning of coerulea

[Orquiadicto]

Excuse my ignorance, but what is exactly the meaning of coerulea. I've seen it next to the name of various orchids but I don't know what it means.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Blue.

[lepetitmartien]

It's the color of my eyes

Latin for blue, usually a cold blue.

[orchidsamore]

coerulea is blue but how it is used on orchids can vary from meaning a solid blue orchid (rare) that often is a pale blue to a white orchid with a blue lip.

You need to know the common color variety of the orchid before you can 'guess' how much blue it has.

If I want blue I want to see the flower first and ignor the name tag.

[Magnus A]

I would say that it mean that the flower is more blueish than the usually form. In many cases you would not describe a coerulea as BLUE if you only had one flower to look at...

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Technically speaking the only group of orchids that I know of that are true blue are:

1. Certain species of Disa.

2. Certain species within the genus Thelymitra or certain species within genera that are closely allied to it (i.e. Cyanicula).

All the other orchids that are commonly sold are not true blue. They are varying shades of blue violet or lavender.

As for the meaning of the word coerulea itself, it does mean blue.

[Bud]

Philip is right, there is no blue orchid....they are violet or lavender with a tinge of blue....or as with the Catt seabreeze it is bluegreen = more on the percentage of blue
*as I checked on the Latin/English dictionary used by medical students; coerulea=blue