I too have one of these which is only a wee little thing at the moment, so a couple of years off flowering stage, but it's so nice to see a picture of what she's going to grow up to be like :)

Spectacular! I'm afraid I'm going to have to breakdown and buy one of those.

To be honest in this case the taxonomist are right and the name Laelia is incorrect (I still call them laelia to). The story is that the first laelia described is from Mexico. The Mexican laelia's are however not closely related to the South American ones. So it was decided to give a new name to the South American Laelia's. Different solutions came by like Sophronitis and Hofmannseggella. In the end it was decided that the splitting would never stop and thus it was decided that the official name for the South American Laelia's and the Sophronitis would be called Cattleya's although confusing to me it's one of the few situations where I agree with the taxonomists. To many of them are silly splitters.

very interesting....but my tags are still gonna say laelia lol! I guess I'll just stay behind the times on this one. Maybe one day I'll change them. :)

Beautiful flower. Congratulations.

I love purpurata but don't have the room for one. :( I guess that just means I have to build my greenhouse. :evil:

Cheers.
Jim