Catasetum expansum, males and females

[nancy]

This year I am getting a lot of female flowers - it is time to divide!
These two Ctsm. expansums show marked differences in the male flowers; the female blossomss are similar, though the 'unnamed' species has larger flowers; there are subtle differences, though.
The first pair are simply expansum;the second is expansum 'Los Tres Pasas' x sib.
The female flowers, uniformly, smell like bell pepper.
Enjoy - Nancy

[dvespertilio]

Nancy: Thanks for posting these nice pix of Catasetum male and female flowers. Catasetum expansum is still my favourite species of all the catasetum species.

I have obtained a number of interesting catasetum species and hybrids from Antonio Schmidt of Bela Vista Orchids, and am anxiously awaiting them to break dormancy and begin growing again, I hope later this summer. The hemispheric reversal factor comes into play here.

You mentioned dividing your expansums. I would very much like to obtain divisions of these plants, if you haven't promised them to anybody yet. I would gladly pay you for them, and for the cost of shipping. If you're interested, please name your price. My email is dvespertilio@bellsouth.net.

Thanks!

Michael E. Davis

[snow]

wonderfull ''Nancy'' . male or female.

[isurus79]

Awesome! Yours bloomed early this year. Lucky you!

[catwalker808]

Nancy. You probably know that light seems to be a major determinant of sex of the Catasetum flowers. You have the large nice male flowers with sweet fragrance and also the small truncated non-fragrant female flowers ... hope I'm not sounding sexist.
Are the flowers on the same spike?

Did you know that you can sometimes get 3 types of flowers? If your flower spike and big buds emerge in shady conditions, or under crowded leaf cover, the BIG BUD will bloom male. However, if a smaller bud develops under bright light, it will become female. Some people have asked how they could breed their plants when they only bloomed male flowers.

If a partially bloomed spike under shady conditions produces a male flower ... then is moved into bright light, the smaller terminal buds will develop into female flowers. HOWEVER, the buds which are medium sized, in the middle of the spike and partially developed, may sometimes develop into hermaphroditic ("perfect") flowers with characteristics of both male and female. I'm not sure what a botanist would find under a microscope, but the characteristics seem to be there.

Michael. If you just got your plants from "Toninio" in Brazil, the hemispheric change might be real confusing. In Brazil, the catasetums should have dropped their leaves for fall and have just bloomed or are preparing to bloom. If your plants have dropped their leaves in the Brazilian fall and were preparing to bloom, if any bloom spikes had started to express themselves, you may end up with some keikis coming from the confused bloom eyes, as well as some normal basal growths Depends when you got them. But they should certainly bloom in the fall.
I love catasetums ... except for the thorns and the mite magnets.

[nancy]

Catwalker808 - I have added another thread with flowers that might be hermaphrodite - they have the long Jay Leno chin that I associate with the male flowers, but no wishbone trigger...
I grow these species in the same place every year, and if anything, they are growing more and more shaded as the trees grow larger. Though I think light is "the" determinant of sex in small/young plants, I find that large, older, and overgrown plants do tend to bloom more and more female.
Cheers - Nancy

[dvespertilio]

Catwalker808: Thanks for the info on Antonio's plants. Sounds like you know him well, and have had experience growing stuff from the southern hemisphere. The 12 seedlings came with leaves yellowing or pretty much gone. That was in mid-May. They have no new growths yet and no spikes, the latter probably because they are not yet big enough to spike. I would suppose, having 2-3 bulbs each, that they would bloom next Spring or maybe late this winter, after initiating and growing later this summer. I am keeping them quite dry and the temps here on my porch are in the 90s. I hope to see new growth in them within the next 3-4 months, maybe sooner. So that would put them growing as we move into our fall, and then blooming later in the winter or early spring. At some point the whole cycle would need to get compressed and new growth would start in the spring, with blooms in our fall, maybe in 2010. We shall see.

I, too, love catasetums. The thorns are an occasional nuisance if you're inattentive, and I've thus far had no problems with mites. I have only 30 plants total. Right now my hyrid C. Crown Fox Voodoo 'Sunset Valley Orchids' AM/AOS is sending out it's 3rd spike for the season and flower bud differentiation is just beginning. It had 7 buds on its first spike, but six of those blasted due to extreme aridity earlier this spring. ( I grow outdoors.) The one bud that opened was male. The second spike had six buds, but the plant blew down and two buds broke off. Of the remaining four, two were male, two female. I am anxious to see what will develop on the third spike. Hopefully there'll be no further mishaps with the development of that spike.

[nancy]

Hi Steve/Isurus79 -
Your home state is probably not as prone as mine to temperature extremes (103F here yesterday!). About half of my catasetinae show good-sized new growths by early-mid winter; a few have bloomed by the middle of March.
Perhaps it is the temperature fluctuations that trigger earlier growth and blooming? Though I have had catasetums, clowesias and clowesetums bloom in pretty much every month, some after the foliage falls, some as it develops. A few enter dormancy in the fall and are in full growth by late winter.
I don't argue with them, they would punish me!
Cheers - Nancy

[dvespertilio]

Here's a couple of pictures of my Catasetum Crown Fox Voodoo's second spike with male and female flowers.

[dvespertilio]

The first and second spikes on this plant, pictured in my previous posting, flowered in late April and May of this year. My conditions are similar to those experienced by Nancy, I think.