Grocery store intergeneric

[Fishkeeper]

I found this pretty thing at a grocery store among a bunch of other orchids tagged "Exotic orchid- oncidium and intergenerics". None of the others looked like it, and the leaves are really interesting, so I thought I'd take it home and see what those pretty purple flowers open into.

I know it's impossible to ID for certain, but does anyone want to take a stab at what it might be composed of? Or shall I just give it the generic "probably related to an oncidium" treatment? The roots look thicker than that.

I'm gonna put it in a much larger pot once it's done flowering. It looks like it's in a fine-grained peat substrate? Think I'm going to put it in a mix of sphagnum, peat chunks, small pieces of bark, and charcoal, something fine-grained and relatively good at holding water. I'll keep it on the moister side but let it dry out once a week or so, and I'll give it kinda moderate light until I figure out what it wants.

The poor thing was crammed into the pot so tight it was a major pain to get out. I didn't want to try cutting the pot off with how many roots it seemed to have, and, wow. Roots stacked up three deep on all sides, crammed in so tightly they're all kinds of shapes other than round. I could barely find any of its substrate. I don't want to fully re-pot it until it flowers, I want to get a pic of the flowers all the way open for ID purposes, but I set it inside the decorative pot that its plastic pot was in. It has about a half-inch of empty space on each side, I figure that'll help it breathe until I can re-pot it fully.


Big plant, easily two feet tall. Looks healthy to me. Those buds are lighter in person.


Short, smooth pseudobulbs, with a few new ones popping up. The bulbs with more leaves are almost completely hidden by the bases of the leaves, like that one in the center of the pic.


The roots remind me of moth orchid roots. Some of the outer ones are a bit bruised, unfortunately, I had to squeeze the pot (as gently as possible) to get the plant out. Other than that and being crammed into all kinds of weird shapes, they appear to be healthy.
They were in there even tighter when I first took the pot off, I just gently loosened all the ones I could find the ends of to help it breathe.

Any suggestions on how to keep this happy?

[Leafmite]

They look like Zygopetalum roots.

[estación seca]

I agree it's probably a Zygopetalum intergeneric hybrid. I would not have removed this from the pot until finished flowering. They have a very high water requirement, and tend to do very well in this kind of potting mix. I would have left it in that until it outgrew the pot.

They also like cool temperatures, the cooler the better.

[Fishkeeper]

Thank you, that's very good to know. I'm more excited for the blooms now, as well, I looked them up and they have beautiful flowers.

I think it's beyond outgrowing the pot at this point. The roots on the outside edges are flat, and some even have angles and sharp edges from being wedged between other roots.

I won't bother it any further while it's blooming, I was just worried that it was going to suffocate or drown in there.

How wet are we talking? I'm thinking of similar watering to Nepenthes pitcher plants, i.e. damp all the time but well-drained and never soggy.

How much of a pot upgrade do I want to give it after it's done flowering? An inch or so of room on each side so its roots can spread out a bit? Also, I'm assuming that clay is good here, am I right?

Would peat chunks, small pieces of bark, charcoal, and a small handful of perlite make for a good mix? I'd be aiming for an orchid mix that's made of smaller pieces.

[Dollythehun]

ES took some very good notes on those which I'll try to repost for you or pm them.
I grow mine with my phals but on the top shelf so slightly higher light. I keep it damp at all times in a bark spaghnum mix in a ventilated ceramic pot. I have a fan in that window which zygos need to prevent leaf spotting. Hope this helps. The temp never gets higher than mid 70f not lower than 65f. Humidity in 50% range.