Epigeneium amplum surprise

[JandenHeld]

I have this plant already for some twenty years, and after some difficult years it now is doing well again. What I never noticed before is, that if you look from above into the flower, you see a glowing red spot inside (photo 2). Apparently the tip of the mentum (the stump 'spur' of the flower) is both transparent and red, causing this effect. Maybe a homing beacon for visiting insects?

Jan

[RosieC]

Cool pics, thanks for showing them!

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Nice pics of the flowers. They flower is beautiful. I'll have to check and see if I can get one in the future.

[Royal]

How do you grow this one? What were you doing wrong before that gave it trouble?

[JandenHeld]

Hi Royal,

How do you grow this one? What were you doing wrong before that gave it trouble?

I grow it cool (winter minimum 10 C), in half shade and with a dry rest, occasionally misting it. The thing with E. amplum is that the bulbs are widely spaced (up to 10 cm!) so in no time your plant runs off its mount or out of its pot. I used to repot or remount every few years, often also cutting the plant in half, to solve this problem.
I think now that it is better to leave the plant undisturbed as long as possible, so I grow it now in a large but very shallow (3 cm) basket, with lots of bulbs far outside the basket. These have their roots hanging free in the air, so in summer you need to spray/mist every day. Thanks to the shallow basket, the substrate in it still will be dry before evening. Once a week I soak the whole plant, basket and all, for a few minutes.

Root formation is rather irregular, new roots being formed both on new and some old bulbs, sometimes early but also sometimes late in summer. Aerial roots are mostly short (3-6 cm), and possibly provide the bulb with less water and nutrients than roots in a substrate, which is the reason that I will eventually have to 'rebasket' my plant.

In the wild I saw this species forming extensive mats on bare sandstone in Thailand (see link below), which seems to confirm the idea that a large undisturbed plant is the best way to grow this species.

Butterfly & Orchids Photo Gallery in Thailand - Epigeneium amplum - ???????????????/Epigeneium amplum


Jan

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[cb977]

Originally Posted by King_of_orchid_growing:)

Nice pics of the flowers. They flower is beautiful. I'll have to check and see if I can get one in the future.

Agreed! It just made it to my wishlist!

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

If it's from Thailand, that rock the Epigeneium amplum is growing on is most likely some sort of limestone.

They got tons of it there. There are tons of limestone cliffs, hills, and loose limestone rocks all over the place.

[JandenHeld]

This was in the north of Thailand, the National Park of Phu Hin Rong Kla, which is sandstone only. Southern Thailand is mostly limestone, but I did not see any Epigeneium amplum there (mostly it's too low and hot there for this species).

[Tom-DE]

Lovely species!

[jason woodrue]

Jan,
that bloom is fabulous!!
Do you have a picture of your entire plant? I am curious to see how it is growing for you. i recently picked up some seedlings of this species from olympic orchids and they are so small right now that there is no space on the rhizome. the bulbs are still very close together at this stage. it looks verymuch like my nakaharai seedlings right now except that it has 2 leaves on each pbulb. instead of 1.