Unidentified rescued Catasetum

[SG in CR]

After hurricane Otto passed through northern Costa Rica a lot of fallen trees with orchids in them were to be found all over the place. I managed to get quite a few. This is a Catasetum that I found on the ground. It has a fairly large pbulb about 9" long and quite fat. It started growing soon after I tied it to a mango tree in front of my house. THe root growth in the last couple weeks has been really impressive. I'm guessing that it will turn out to be C. maculatum as those are the only species I've seen in the area. Though I'm hoping that it might be something new to me.

[Orchidgirl83]

Very nice save! It looks like it likes its new home.

[AvantGardner]

Catasetums falling from the sky? I could get used to that.

Best of luck with it!

[isurus79]

Super cool thread! Can you describe your rainy seasons for us? When do you get rain, how intense is your dry season, etc.

[SG in CR]

A typical rainy season starts beginning to mid May and lasts till December-February depending on where you are. It will generally rain a little each day, With the occasionall week of constant cloudy/rainy weather but there are a couple dry/sunny weeks in between that they call "veranillos" which translates to "little summers". Here where I am it starts to rain less by December but doesn't really stop raining all together till about end of February. Then the humidity levels will drop till the grass gets dry and the earth cracks. During Easter a week of rainy weather will generally come through which seems to be make the difference between the type of vegetation in my area and the drier Guanacaste further west where the Easter rain doesn't reach. Then it's a few more weeks of dry weather before it starts all over again.
To give an idea of what sorts of orchids do well in this climate, common orchids here are Trigonidium egertonianum, Maxillaria hedwigiae, Aspasia epidendroides, Anacheilium radiatum, Oncidium cebolleta, Catasetum maculatum, Sobralia decora, S. fragrans, Encyclia stellata, Epidendrum nocturnum, Pleurothallis grobyi and less common I've found Gongora claviodora(currently blooming), Lophiaris crispiflora(currently blooming), Anacheilium abbreviatum and Galeandra baueri

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by SG in CR

A typical rainy season starts beginning to mid May and lasts till December-February depending on where you are. It will generally rain a little each day, With the occasionall week of constant cloudy/rainy weather but there are a couple dry/sunny weeks in between that they call "veranillos" which translates to "little summers". Here where I am it starts to rain less by December but doesn't really stop raining all together till about end of February. Then the humidity levels will drop till the grass gets dry and the earth cracks. During Easter a week of rainy weather will generally come through which seems to be make the difference between the type of vegetation in my area and the drier Guanacaste further west where the Easter rain doesn't reach. Then it's a few more weeks of dry weather before it starts all over again.
To give an idea of what sorts of orchids do well in this climate, common orchids here are Trigonidium egertonianum, Maxillaria hedwigiae, Aspasia epidendroides, Anacheilium radiatum, Oncidium cebolleta, Catasetum maculatum, Sobralia decora, S. fragrans, Encyclia stellata, Epidendrum nocturnum, Pleurothallis grobyi and less common I've found Gongora claviodora(currently blooming), Lophiaris crispiflora(currently blooming), Anacheilium abbreviatum and Galeandra baueri

This is very helpful!! So it sounds like rain can occur anytime outside the dry season, but things are especially dry right now. Is it safe to say that the Catasetum roots grow the most during the dry season?

This also gives me some insight for my Onc. cebolleta.

[SG in CR]

Here are some pictures of the other Catasetum that I found in fallen trees. The one that is about to bloom is a C. maculatum and is growing it's second pbulb and flower since December. Not sure if that's a good thing or not.

[SG in CR]

I haven't seen much Catasetum growth at the beginning of the dry season. It seems that they start shooting out new pbulbs with the rain that comes around Easter, towards the end of the dry season and the base of the new growth gets a ton of new roots that seem to grow seeking every nook and cranny it can find to grow into. Then out of the fat main roots shoot fine aerial roots that grow out into the air and seem to serve to catch any debris that might fall out of the tree that will serve as fertilizer as it decomposes. Gongora have a similar root growth habit, just that they do it in the second half of the rainy season.
The rain in the rainy season seems to come in waves with it being fairly sunny and only raining a bit or not at all for about a week and then the rain/clouds increase till the weather is cloudy all day with sporadic heavy rainfall for about a week. Then it slows down again becoming sunnier and drier to begin the cycle all over again. This cycle occurs even during the dry season just that in march the clouds that pass don't drop any rain. And in the rainiest months it may not have a single day without precipitation.
The O. cebolleta are extremely common in the orange groves here. I could probably find a few hundred in a single morning. I have quite a few mounted on branches near my house. They seem to like light shade and growing hanging from a horizontal branch. They are fairly short lived though. You rarely find any that have more than about 4 large "leaves".

[orchidsarefun]

Are you binding these to various trees in a specific 'direction' ? By that I mean South, West etc ? Do the roots eventually attach to the trunk - as opposed to growing nestled in a tree fork etc. ?

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[SG in CR]

With a lot of the orchids that I tie to trees I prefer an east orientation because that the predominant direction the wind comes from, so when it rains that's the side of the trunk to get wet the most. And also it seems like they prefer to get the morning sun and be shaded from the afternoon sun. But a lot of my orchids are also mounted on horizontal branches, and in those cases I don't really pay so much attention to the orientation.
All my orchids seem to grow their roots down onto the tree and attach themselves firmly. But I found that it's important to tie the orchid down directly to the branch very tight. If the wind can shift the plant around a bit, some orchids can't seem to get their footing.
The Catasetum in the beginning of this post already has roots that made their way through the old root mass and are attaching directly to the mango branch.