Cattleya mossiae coerulea

[bernardomantas97]

Hey everyone!

So, here's another mossiae (out of I don't even know how many I have) that's decided to start blooming a little off-season - it still has 2 more sheaths, but this was the only one so far that decided summer was a good time to push forth some buds.

This is quite a large plant, and it is a bit crammed in my current setup; I'll be moving soon (hopefully), so the next bloomings might turn out better with more sunlight instead of LEDs.

The colour is amazing, as I expected from a coerulea, but the size of the flowers appears quite average - this one is still opening up and the 2 others haven't begun, but my semi-alba (which I posted not long ago) remains undefeated for size: 20cm vs maybe 13/14cm if this one flattens out a bit more on the next few days.
I'll drop an update when the 3 flowers are open!

All in all, I'm happy though; it is lovely. I have one other coerulea (which came from Hilmar at Asendorfer), can't wait till it's big enough to see the differences between the two.

[smweaver]

It's very pretty. And yes, the plants do get large and like to spread out (I see that you've made an effort to tame this habit with twine). But I think that, if you don't know how many mossiaes you have, this is a good time to consider shipping a few of them to the US. I will gladly take any Cattleya mossiae that I can get my hands on, and I will be happy to do you the favor of reducing your collection to a more manageable number of plants. Seriously, that's a lovely C. mossiae you have. Congratulations.

[bernardomantas97]

Thanks Steve! Sadly, we don't have permission to import / export plants from / to the US here in Portugal - still couldn't figure out exactly why it was never approved... But I do have a lot of different varieties of mossiae; they were hard to come by though, ahahah. I believe I have 2 coeruleas, 1 semi-alba, 1 alba, 1 tipo, 1 suave and 1 concolor (definitely NOT obsessed with the species, I'm sure you could tell), but growing them in a windowsill under LEDs doesn't quite seem to yield the best results. Fortunately, I will have outdoor space in my new house to have a greenhouse of sorts (and to tread down Roberta's path and end up filling the whole backyard in a few years, ahahah)

[Roberta]

[bernardomantas97]

Here's an update, btw; the 3 buds are now open! The first one is a bit larger than the other two, and they got kind of stuck against another sheath, but oh well, ahahah.

The fragrance has already kicked in and it's absolutely FANTASTIC - not quite the same as the semi-alba, which was a lot more intense and not as sweet (more citrus-y?), but I just love both anyway.