No fragrance on Brassavola nodosa 'Little Stars'?

[Hansu.nahar]

This gorgeous orchid finally bloomed for me. However, it has been two days and it doesn't have any fragrance during the night nor during the day. Does it normally take this long to produce fragrance? Please advice me what to do...

[katrina]

I sold my giant Little Stars last fall but I could always smell mine the first night or two the flowers began to open.

[Leafmite]

Unfortunately, in the orchid judging community, fragrance does not matter and so those who are doing the hybridizing are not concerned about fragrance. So, now, we are finding orchids that traditionally attract pollinators with a strong fragrance that have absolutely no fragrance at all. It is a little strange, when one thinks about it. I had a Brassavola nodosa (one of Little Star's parents) that produced beautiful flowers but that had absolutely no fragrance. I let it bloom a few times and...nothing. Someone at our OS prefers her orchids to be fragrance-free and she is now enjoying it.
My advice is to give it another round of blooming and if it is still not fragrant, find a new home for it and find another. You will eventually get a fragrant one.

[PaphMadMan]

First, just to be sure everyone understands this, Brassavola Little Stars is a hybrid (B. nodosa x B. subulifolia). It is possible that someone named a clone of B. nodosa 'Little Stars' but that would be a bad choice and possibly deliberately misleading. We can't be absolutely certain based on this picture, but it probably is the hybrid B. Little Stars.

Fragrance in any flowering plant is a tricky thing. It can vary in every individual plant of a species, and may be strong only at particular times of day, on flowers of a particular age, and always subject to environmental conditions, plant health, etc. And each of us has an individual difference in our perception of any particular fragrance.

With a hybrid, even between 2 closely related fragrant species as we have here, we have 2 sets of genes producing different fragrances in different ways, and controlling the release possibly in response to different stimuli. They aren't necessarily working together at all, and may be interfering with each other. So in addition to all the complexities in the previous paragraph we have many additional possible limitations.

Your plant's flowers probably will be fragrant sometime, but it may always be less predictable and less reliable than either species. The best chance may be when flowers are about a week old, at night with no artificial light nearby, with humid conditions, when the plant has been watered that day. It might be strongly scented and reliable, or it might not. I hope you will be able to let us know when it is.

[WhiteRabbit]

Make sure the lights are off!

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by WhiteRabbit

Make sure the lights are off!

Exactly! No light what-so-ever should bring out the fragrance.

[Hansu.nahar]

Hey! Thank you so much for all your replies.
It's been about a week that the flowers opened. I followed all your suggestions but despite everything, the flowers just don't emit a strong fragrance. When I smell them up close, they do have a mild fragrance similar to talcum powder during the night; no where near citrusy. As @Leafmite and @PaphMadMan said, I suppose the fragrance part was lost in the hybridising process.

[jkofferdahl]

I'd be heartbroken. To me, at least half the point of nodosa is the fragrance!

[No-Pro-mwa]

Very pretty. Or you could be like me and I forget to smell mine most of the time at night. I think about it in the day time but forget to smell it when I go to bed.

[Joseia]

I put our nodosas in our bedroom at night, very nice to fall asleep with that fragrance. If they had no fragrance, I would probably get rid of them and buy new ones that do.