Gongora quinquenervis

[Milda]

I got this Gongora bare root from Peru last winter, and about a week ago I could enjoy the beautiful flowers. So do anybody know how long they will last? One has fallen off already - I think because I moved the plant when I was taking the photos.

As you can see, I am growing it in my livingroom together with my phals.




Looks like a little bird, doesn't it?


Milda

[orcdfrk]

Gongora flowers have a pretty short life span, maybe a week at best. Better than Stanhopeas which rarely last more than a day. Good growing

[Mahon]

Beautiful plant and flowers! Looks like it is doing quite well!

I bloomed Gongora species for only 5 days or so... these flowers have very short lifespans... after about day 3, they start to darken (fade) a little bit... after day 5, you have to clean up the huge mess the Gongora leaves on the floor from dropping all the flowers.

I find that the longer the spike on a Gongora (around 2.5ft+), the flowers have a shorter lifespan. Your species tends to be a shorter spike, so it should be a little more long-lived.

-Pat

[justatypn]

Such a shame being so short lived for such a beautiful flower. It looks happy happy happy

[nancy]

Hi -
In my experience, the flowers of Gga quinquinervis last just exactly a week - to the point that several times I've heard pfft-pfft-pfft, etc., as the flowers fall one by one.
As the plant grows and matures, it can bloom many times, though - easy to see why these flowers are called 'flying dragons'. And strongly and wonderfully scented, too.
Cheers - Nancy

[Milda]

Glad I took the photos before it was to late! The flowers lasted a week, just like you said. I divided this plant when I got it. Now the rest of the plant seems to get new bulbs. Hoping for more flowers! Can it flower at any time of the year?
Milda

[Gongora]

: What you have there is Gongora rufescens a very nice orchid in its own right. Poor old Gongora quinquenervis tends to be the scapegoat for all gongora's in a genus that appears to be a complete train wreck of plants not correctly identified, currently about 80 species are recognized (I believe far more).In my collection I have about 50 different species of Gongora, of which 15 were purchased as quinquinervis and no two of them are the same. This problem originates all the way back to Ruiz & Pavon the 2 Spanish botanists who originally collected this orchid in Northern Peru in 1794. The type material that was collected by these 2 gentle men still exists in Madrid Spain. This comprises of three herbarium sheets being attributed to Gongora quinquenervis, two of which only show vegetative parts and the third sheet shows a bulb with two leaves and an inflorescence with two seed pods (No Flowers) . This accompanied by a line drawing which as far as I’m concerned could represent anyone of a number of different Gongora’s, it is not conclusive. There has recently been a color drawing that has come to light that was found in the archives in Madrid, this being an improvement on the line drawing is still not comprehensive enough for my liking. It is my opinion that Ruiz & Pavon in discovering & describing this orchid did not take into account the amount of other Gongora species that also existed but where undiscovered at that time and how close morphologically they would be to Gongora quinquenervis and thus not being careful enough with the drawings or the material collected, even the name quinquenervis is in reference to the five nerved lanceolate leaves, this again could be any of them. To compound these problems all you have to do is look in any two or three books that have a photograph of Gongora quinquenervis and you will find that they are all different. To date there has only been one comprehensive work done on these wonderful orchids that is Dr Rudolf Jenny’s A Monograph On The Genus Gongora. There are other publications but far more work needs to be done on this subject. Of the material that is in Madrid if any of this is still viable then DNA testing should be done. Gongora’s are my favorite orchid but these problems are a bug bear of mine which one day may be finally cleared up with definitive evidence. I always intended to put these thoughts into the forum so I hope no ones minds me prattling on about this here, anyway I hope you find this interesting.
Cheers Craig (Gongora)

[littlefrog]

I found it interesting...

I have a Gongora erecta in spike, and another one I can't remember the name of. I went on a bit of a Gongora buying spree at Andy's when I was there (still waiting for spikes on a couple others). I'll have to post photos to make sure they are correctly labelled!

[Oscarman]

Very cool flower - too bad such a short life. Thank goodness for digital cameras!

[Gongora]

If you ever have one in flower please post a photo I will see what I can do to ID.(No guarantees Gongora erecta is easy as the name suggests it should have an upright spike.
Craig