On Thursday, May 19, 2016, Amy Chung Jacobsen, AOS Judge, from Los Altos, California, spoke to the
Desert Valley Orchid Society on Laelia purpurata Lindl. 1852.
I took notes during this lecture and reworked them into this format. Any mistakes are mine. I wish you could have seen the photos.
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Amy Jacobsen has been specializing in Laelia purpurata for many years. She shares greenhouse space in Los Altos, on the San Francisco peninsula, and on the Pacific coast nearby, with her husband Ken Jacobsen, a Cymbidium specialist. Amy has thousands of Laelia purpurata plants.
Amy first spoke about what is L. purpurata. Then, she talked about judging the huge L. purpurata show at Joinville, Santa Catarina state, in Brazil; showed some Santa Catarina orchids in habitat; and she spoke of growing L. purpurata.
Lindley segregated genus Laelia from Cattleya on the basis of Cattleya having 4 pollinia, and Laelia 8. The type species is now known as L. speciosa, from the Mexican highlands. Plants with 8 pollinia from Brazil, having very different growth habits, were subsequently placed into Laelia on the basis of the 8 pollinia. Some of these Brazilian plants look just like the large unifoliate Cattleyas, except for the 8 pollinia. These have large flowers in the color range white through purple. Others, the rupicolous ("rock-dwelling") Laelias, are adapted to growing exposed on rock domes. Many of these rock-dwellers have tall, elongated pseudobulbs, often very long inflorescences and small, brilliant, red to orange to pink flowers.
More recently taxonomists decided the Mexican Laelias should be the only true Laelias. They tried submerging Brazilian former Laelia species into Sophronitis, but that wasn't well accepted. The large-flowered Laelias like L. purpurata and L. tenebrosa have been placed into Cattleya, and taxonomists seem happy with this. Hobbyists still call them Laelias.
The rupicolous Laelias have also been placed into Cattleya, on the basis of preliminary DNA studies, but many people aren't happy with this at all. Most commonly, the large-flowered Laelias are still called "Laelias" by hobbyists, the true Laelias from the Mexican highlands are called "Mexican Laelias", and the small-flowered Brazilian rock-dwellers are called "rupicolous Laelias."
Laelia purpurata is endemic to southern Brazil. The range barely extends north to Rio de Janeiro. It grows on the coast or a little inland. It is an extremely popular garden plant in Brazil, and has been collected to near-extinction throughout the range, in common with a lot of other Brazilian orchids. It survives in the wild almost exclusively in protected areas. It is an epiphyte.
It is a tall grower, with short rhizomes between pseudobulbs, so a plant with hundreds of pseudobulbs can be grown in a 12" / 30cm pot. Its flowers are 6-8 inches / 15-20cm across, and it makes 4-7 flowers per growth, if happy. There is a very wide range of color forms. There are more named forms of L. purpurata than any other Cattleya. The fragrance is unique and recognizable instantly, and is the same across all the color forms. They bloom in early summer; the season lasts about 8 weeks. Darker color forms tend to bloom later during the blooming season.
Laelia purpurata grows into an enormous plant, with thousands of flowers, in the wild; Amy showed one in the crotch of a tree in habitat. This plant had wild-type flowers, with narrow petals and sepals, that often twist or droop, and ordinary color forms. She pointed out there is no reason to collect any of them; wild flowers are greatly inferior to line-bred types.
At the end of October a huge Laelia purpurata show is held in Joinville, the largest city in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Amy was in a team of AOS judges who went to judge the show. This is a bench show, not a display show. Hundreds of plants of each color form are set side-by-side on long tables for judging. There are many color forms, and there are tens of thousands of plants up for judging. Imagine the fragrance in the hall!
Growers there have been line-breeding color forms for many generations. Flower form and color are outstanding. Growers take only their very best plants to the show. Imagine tens of thousands of the best of the best, and having to select the very best from that. The growers know what is good quality, so there is a lot of pressure on the judges to get it right.
Amy showed many photos of the show, and breath-taking awarded plants. They are classified on the basis of color, as well as the form of the flowers. Then Amy talked about the main color forms and classifications, and showed photos of each. As they say, you should have been there.
Color forms of Laelia purpurata
Typical plants ("Tipo") have white petals and sepals, blushed pink. The pink can be lighter or darker. The lip is purple, and this purple lip is dominant in hybrids.
Concolors are always pink; they have pink lips, petals and sepals. The lip can be darker than the petals and sepals.
Whites have pure white petals and sepals, with no hint of color. Albas have pink in the throat, but not farther out in the lip. Semi-albas have purple lips. Atro has a very dark lip. Virginalis is pure white, with no hint of pink nor purple.
Blues have several forms. The coerulea we are familiar with is called Ardosa in Brazil. A brighter blue is called Roxo-violeta in southern Brazil, and Aco in the north. Werkhauserii is an unusual grayish blue that is found in no other orchid. For years it was unavailable outside Brazil, or inside, for that matter.
Carnea has a raspberry- or strawberry-colored lip. These plants used to have lighter lips but are being bred for darker lips.
Russelliana or Suave has a pale pink lip, paler than Carnea.
Roxo-bispo occurs only in Santa Catarina state. It has pure white tepals, and a pink-purple lip the color of a Roman Catholic bishop's ceremonial robes.
Vinicolor or bordeaux is a red wine color. This is a very rare color, so flower form is not as important when judging.
Rubra has strongly-colored petals and sepals, and a red lip.
Sanguinea is a very dark red.
Anelata has a white lip with a narrow ring of color near the edge. The lip can have any color.
Argolao has a white lip with a ring of color up to 1/3 the lip width. The lip can have any color.
Marginata has a very dark rim on a white lip. The lip can have any color.
Oculata has a white patch at the tip of the lip, separating the color on the rim. If this white spot did not exist, it would be a Marginata. The lip can have any color.
Mandayana has no grooves in the jaws of color in the throat.
Flamea has patches, of any color, that radiate out along the petals and sepals, against a lighter background, looking like flames.
Striata has unbranched lines or stripes, of any color, that radiate out along the petals and sepals, against a lighter background.
Venosa is similar to Striata, except the stripes branch as they radiate outwards.
Werckhauserii striata is found in nature.
Plants in habitat
Amy showed photos of trips around Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazil, looking at orchids. She commented about things that would be useful for growers in other places.
Cyrtopodium paranensis grew in a lot of places. Reed-stem Epidendrum and Oncidium flexuosum were everywhere. She showed Cattleya intermedia carpeting horizontal tree limbs in a commercial parking lot, and also growing in brilliant, hot white sand on the beach, with no shade. Reed-stem Epidendrums grew nearby. This sand would burn bare feet. She said C. intermedia can easily tolerate extremely high amounts of sun and heat if humidity is high and nights cool down, and she suggested we try it outside here in Phoenix. She also showed C. leopoldii flowering in a street landscape tree in front of an automobile dealership. She showed an enormous Catasetum species in a tree at the Florianópolis bus station; I counted 14 inflorescences on the side of the plant visible.
Growing Laelia purpurata
Laelia purpurata is a vigorous, fast-growing plant when happy. Because of its vertical growth habit and short rhizomes, it is easier to accommodate L. purpurata in a collection than many other large Cattleyas. The commonest growth errors are not giving enough light, water and fertilizer.
Santa Catarina State has an annual temperature range between 50-80 F / 10-27C. (But L. purpurata does fine outside this range!) It averages 61" / 155 centimeters of rain per year. The winter is at the cooler end of the range, and is drier. The lowest rainfall is in June, mid-winter in the southern hemisphere, averaging 3" / 762mm during that month. Summer brings drenching rain almost every day. The plants are never dry for long in habitat.
Amy has found they do well with daytime temperatures between 55 F / 13C in winter and 95 F / 35C in summer, with occasional summer excursions to 115 F / 46C for many hours during the day. Summer nights always cool down where she grows, into the 60s F / 15-20C.
They grow well with routine winter nightly lows of 35-55 F / 2-13C. Her plants have experienced 24 F / -4.5C in winter for 5 nights in a row with no damage. Laelia purpurata is more cold-hardy than are Cymbidium hybrids. Amy has noticed Portuguese-speaking orchids are very cold hardy, while Spanish-speaking orchids are not. She suggested we try them outside in Phoenix on a patio, with some shade from the hot sun, and perhaps other plants around to increase humidity.
They are high-light plants. She grows in an unshaded greenhouse. Ken grows his hybrid Cymbidiums at up to 120 F / 49C most every day in the summer, and 100% humidity, in Los Altos, with no shade on the greenhouse. She suggested here in Phoenix we use 50%-70% Aluminet during the hottest months, and no shade during cooler months.
Laelia purpurata prefers high humidity at all times, but accepts much less without complaining. During her hot spells of 115 F / 46C, her relative humidity is around 30%.
They need drenching water during the summer, with less water in the winter. They should not be dry for very long at any time of the year. She provides fertilization with almost every watering during the summer, using 64 PPM nitrogen. She gives less during the winter, but still fertilizes. She uses an MSU blend, or Miracle-Gro, if she gets it on sale at Costco at the end of the season. She and Ken have so many plants they fertilize with an injector system.
Like all Cattleya types, they need good root aeration. They are not particular about medium. They do well in Orchiata, Kiwi Bark, perlite, charcoal, plain bark - whatever is well-aerated. She uses Orchiata because she and Ken go through so much of it, and live near a supplier, so they have pallets delivered with no additional charge. She doesn't think a long-lived medium is an advantage; they grow so fast, they usually need repotting every 2 years. She recommended the largest chunks for mature plants, and the next size down for smaller mature plants. She uses straight bark, rather than mixing it with perlite or LECA, because non-organic material cannot go into the garden waste bins for pickup where she lives.
Don't divide Laelia purpurata if you can help it! It flowers much better, with more flowers per stem, when it's a large plant. Amy said she grows in 12" plastic bulb pans because it's hard for her to get larger bulb pans. She would use 16" pots if she could get them reasonably. She uses bulb pans because they're shallower than standard pots, so they dry out faster, and she can water and fertilize more often. She uses plastic because she's had greenhouse benches collapse under clay-potted L. purpurata.
You don't need to repot when the 1st growth walks out of the pot. Such a growth will bloom just fine. But, repot when the 2nd growth out of the pot is forming. When you repot, remove all the old bark.
Unlike many Cattleya species, L. purpurata makes roots twice yearly: March and September (northern hemisphere.) Wait to repot until new roots are growing. If you break the green tip of a new root, the root dies back to the rhizome. Older roots might branch. So, repot when new roots are short.
Where to get Laelia purpurata
Good, modern Laelia purpurata forms almost don't exist in the US. You have to buy imports from Brazil. Best, of course, is to go to the Joinville show and bring plants home! Good flowering-size plants can be had in Brazil for around $15 US. The best clones are not for sale, and not available for mericloning. Seedling batches and flasks can be bought, but this requires a lot of space to get a few better plants. It is important to pay attention to export and import laws.
In the US, they can be bought from Floralia, always at the Santa Barbara show, and often at the Huntington show. Advance order is recommended. A question arose about seedlings of forms sold in the US by some vendors. She replied seedlings often do not resemble the parents, so this is a crapshoot. The most satisfaction will come from buying a named division. When buying seedlings, one should buy a large number, grow them to flowering, and discard those with lesser flowers.
The best way to reroot bare-root imported plants: Select the tiniest pot possible. Use sphagnum moss packed VERY tightly. Water occasionally. The tight packing is important so the moss never becomes soaked, which would rot the plant. Wait about 3 months and check for roots; then repot.
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