Fragrant Phal. Timothy Christopher

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By the last few hours of the Desert Valley Orchid Society Show last weekend we had only about 20 plants left to sell. We marked them down. At the very end there were still a few, so some of us members bought them.

I wound up with three Phals in flower: two miniatures, Timothy Christopher and Dtps. Arielle, and the standard Phal. Yu Pin Sweety. I don't know whether the minis are mericlones or seedlings but I suspect mericlones


Top Phal. Yu Pin Sweety
L-R Timothy Christoper; Arielle

Today I noticed a mild but definite sweet fragrance where I wasn't expecting any. I tracked it down to the Timothy Christoper. It was detectable from about six feet away. I didn't realize this could be fragrant. It does contain 25% Phal. stuartiana.

Does anybody else have a fragrant Timothy Christopher? What I found online says it isn't fragrant.

I don't find Phal./Dtps. Arielle in Orchidroots.

[Leafmite]

Fragrance is always a wonderful bonus. If there is no clonal name, you might have a cross and that could explain why yours is fragrant.

[Dimples]

A Timothy Christopher has been on my wish list for a while. A fragrant one would be a huge bonus. What a nice buy!

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Our sale coordinator said they came from Newman's Nursery, a wholesale-only business in Hawaii. That means Newman's probably has/had a lot of this variety to sell, and it will probably be available here and there at various orchid vendors for a while. I can't find a Web page for them, but they have a Facebook page.

I just took a look at Orchids by Hausermann, because they sell a lot of Phals - they have Timothy Christoper in spike now.

Over the years I've read multiple people here commenting on such and such and orchid that was once everywhere, and now they can't find it. Mericlones of popular orchids tend to be widely available for a somewhat short period over the years, then not available for years. This is because a mericlone lab will grow a lot of them, then sell them in flask to various wholesalers around the world. The wholesalers grow them on and sell them to retailers. When that batch is sold the producer will produce something else from its stock, and not get around to previous plants for some years. So something you really like will probably show up eventually. I suggest tracking down wholesalers or mericlone producers, and getting on their notification lists. If it's in production in flask or compot it will show up in retail somewhere. Something that didn't sell well might not be made available again.