My 2013 blooming Coelogynes

[Yéri]

Originally Posted by orchidsarefun

wow.......beautiful collection. The fragrance in your grow area must be special too.
Why don't you seed -propagate ? This genus is one of the least hybridised.....

I'm afraid the fragrance wasn't that amazing. You could smell it if you stuck your nose in it, but it wasn't any stronger than that. Maybe you have any tips in order to enhance fragrance?

As for propagation, I am about to try my hands on propagation soon, but it was my intention indeed to at least propagate the less common Coelogynes out there (and other uncommon orchids).
I'm totally in love with the genus and I only see the same ones over and over, which is something I would love to change

Don't be fooled by my collection though, I bought a lot of those this year only. I'm not that experienced in the genus (or even in orchids in general), but I'm passionate and young enough to make plenty of mistakes and learn from them!

[orchidsarefun]

I was at a greenhouse and the scent in one of the growing rooms was amazing. I asked - and was told it was a C tomentosa - though the plant had no label and they spent about 10 minutes trying to find out what it was. I would have bought it if it wasn't in such poor condition, the 3 spikes had also almost finished blooming.

I have a c lactea ( maybe huetterana, will wait and see how many blooms it has ) which hopefully blooms early next year. Its a huge plant.

The hybrids definitely look better. GL !

[Yéri]

Oh yes C. tomentosa is said to be very fragrant, mine hasn't bloomed yet so we'll see

As for your C. lactea (syn to C. flaccida), one of the major differences with C. huettneriana is that the flower spikes appear at the bottom of the adult pseudobulb, whereas huettneriana has them coming out of the new shoots.
C. lactea also has a pendant inflorescence, huettneriana tends to have an erect flower spike. That should help you determining which one it is as soon as you see something popping out

Some other visible differences are the pseudobulbs: C. huettneriana has more ovoïd (round) pseudobulbs and they more cramped up together.

Hope this helped a bit!

[orchidsarefun]

thanks, that is very useful.
I hope its a lactea/flaccida as there are more adult pseudobulbs than new growth. I can't say whether they are cramped as I have nothing to compare to.
Adding to the name confusion is that the label says c huettneriana var lactea, and I can't find that as a valid registration.
The lactea is also supposed to have fewer flowers per spike than flaccida.
I could have 1 of 3 species - I can't wait for it to flower ! I got it earlier this month, the previous owner says it always flowers in February. I am only watering it roughly 1x per week but maybe I should extend that to 1x every 10 days ? The pseudobulbs are still sort of plumpish.

[Yéri]

C. huettneriana var. lactea is a known synonym for C. flaccida, so it seems likely to be a C. flaccida.
Another indicator is the supposed flowering season: huettneriana is a bit later and starts flowering around April, whereas February is an indicated month for flaccida to start spiking.
Only certainty will be once it flowers as you said before.

Due to my mistakes from early orchid growing, I've always chosen for less watering in order to avoid rotting. As a general rule: you can always increase water when the bulbs are too shrivelled, but there's not much you can do once those are starting to rot because of overwatering!

For example, I've lost a few orchids this year because we suddenly had a very cold, dark and rainy week or two. I did not reduce watering quickly enough, ending up with a few casualities.

But then again, I don't have much light anyway living in Belgium and don't have the ideal orientation. It's a matter of looking closely and regularly at the plant. After a while you get that kind of 'feeling' of the plant

At the moment, most of my Coelogynes in winter rest are being watered every 2 weeks - 10 days if the bulbs are shrivelling.