Treefrog intro - Orchid Board

treefrog · #1 06-15-2005, 07:10 PM

Hi there,
I have been growing orchids for quite a long time now. As I do my master thesis at the Montreal botanical garden, I have the opportunity to see a tons of orchids common and rare. Also, I<ve did scientific mission in the Guyanas and Peru and had the opportunity to identify, and bring back a lot of lowland amazonian orchids for the botanical garden ans myself.
The orchids I bringed back from Guyana are the most amazing for terrarium use due to the similarity of climatic condition between the lowland amazonia and the terrarium.
Also, in my lab, I have a lot of equipement, and I sometime self or cross species that I sow myself. Right now I have flask comming of Tolumnia guianensis.
I keep more than 250 different orchids but mostly multifloral paph species, phragmipedium, some laelia, cattleya, angraecum, maxillaria....
The most amazing orchids I have come from French Guayana ansd is actually very rare is name Zygosepalum labiosum (not Zygopetalum) and it does very well in darts frog terariums.
I also have and reproduce carnivour plants and Bromeliads.

Marty · #2 06-15-2005, 07:34 PM

Hi,
Very cool, welcome to OB. I also brought some orchids from French Guyana. I'm sure I had stuff that was out of this world. I was on an insect collecting expeidtion in Kaw mountains, near Rura. There was a new road being buillt and leggers were dropping these huge trees, full of vines, bromeliads, birds, etc..it was quite sad to see. We were there when trees were falling, I was able to collect bunch of flowering orchids right from the canopy, I'm sure they were very rare or even possibly undescribed yet...unfortunatelly being a complete newbie

I messed things up and the orchids didn't make it. DUH!

This was few years ago now, but I kick myself for screwing this up !

M

Quote:

Originally Posted by treefrog

Hi there,
I have been growing orchids for quite a long time now. As I do my master thesis at the Montreal botanical garden, I have the opportunity to see a tons of orchids common and rare. Also, I<ve did scientific mission in the Guyanas and Peru and had the opportunity to identify, and bring back a lot of lowland amazonian orchids for the botanical garden ans myself.
The orchids I bringed back from Guyana are the most amazing for terrarium use due to the similarity of climatic condition between the lowland amazonia and the terrarium.
Also, in my lab, I have a lot of equipement, and I sometime self or cross species that I sow myself. Right now I have flask comming of Tolumnia guianensis.
I keep more than 250 different orchids but mostly multifloral paph species, phragmipedium, some laelia, cattleya, angraecum, maxillaria....
The most amazing orchids I have come from French Guayana ansd is actually very rare is name Zygosepalum labiosum (not Zygopetalum) and it does very well in darts frog terariums.
I also have and reproduce carnivour plants and Bromeliads.

Chuck · #3 06-16-2005, 01:59 PM

Hello Treefrog,

I grow some equitants (as well as a bunch of phrags) and Tolumnia guianensis is one I don't have. Are you iterested in selling a few seedlings or even a small flask if you have one? You can reply to my email if you wish. faltoldbaldguy@shaw.ca

Chuck

treefrog · #4 06-16-2005, 05:20 PM

Hi Marty,
when I was in French Guyana, I<ve worked 5 months around Petit Saut, Kaw and Saul. From Kaw, I<ve bring some amazing catasetum and the most amazing cychnoches (I do not remenber the name of the species) but it does multiple spike each day and each spike bears more than 9 enormous flower with very good odours that measure around 17 cm (the biggest of the genus).
When I was in french Guyana, I<ve did more than 30 luminous trap for insect mostly at Petit Saut and Kaw and I<ve bring back a lot of amazin things: megasomas, Harlequin longhorn...more than 100 insects in totals.
It is nice to talk to someone else that has actually been in French Guyana.
By the way Marty if you are still searching for thumbnail I can have a lot of Amazonicus.

Hey Chuck,
I will deflask the Tolumnia in about 4 months, they are already near adult size in their flasks. I will grow them a little bit just to be sure they are doing well and then after that I may sell some. I sow the seed at first to be able to do a complkete wall of them in my dart frog terrarium.

Take care

Marty · #5 06-16-2005, 07:41 PM

Insect collecting was what we did for 2 straight weeks there. I brought probably around 1500-2000 insects from that trip. Yes the harlequin beetles, actually longhorns in general, are one of my favourite too. We were really anxious to get Titanus giganteus, but it wasn't flying at that time.

I bet you didn't know, but there is one incredible specie of Morpho butterfly (Morpho eugenia) that flies for only about 15-20 minutes during the day and then is never seen again!!! It's found almost exclusively in Kaw mountains and it's extremely elusive. You will only see it between 6am-6:20 am. Then you can forget about it. It flies right in the time period, of in between total darkness and sun just starting to come out. Once sun comes out enough so you can actually see where you're going, then they hide and don't come out until the next morning...really weird.

It was hard to catch it, especially after a full night of moth collecting. We would go to jungle to spots where they could fly, with flash lights and be by the ground bait traps of bananas, by about 5:45 waving iridescent blue pieces of cloth. If lucky we would see one or two on a really good day. In 2 weeks of almost going out every day to try to cath the eugenia, I only got 2 of them. Only males fly or are visible at that time. Female sightings are almost non existent.

I looked at a FG map, you were quite down there. It must have been great! We were about an hr south of Rouhra. We lived at a super ventilated accomodations on some guy's farm (name was Janeau)... we had it all, mosquitos, bot flies, vampire bats and fire ants, spiders and scorpions.... and that's just within 5 feet of our beds.

It was a great trip.

RE: Amazonicus, if you're in Canada then I'm game. I'd love to get some. I took pictures of them in Peru, near iquitos...but that's a different story

Quote:

Originally Posted by treefrog

Hi Marty,
when I was in French Guyana, I<ve worked 5 months around Petit Saut, Kaw and Saul. From Kaw, I<ve bring some amazing catasetum and the most amazing cychnoches (I do not remenber the name of the species) but it does multiple spike each day and each spike bears more than 9 enormous flower with very good odours that measure around 17 cm (the biggest of the genus).
When I was in french Guyana, I<ve did more than 30 luminous trap for insect mostly at Petit Saut and Kaw and I<ve bring back a lot of amazin things: megasomas, Harlequin longhorn...more than 100 insects in totals.
It is nice to talk to someone else that has actually been in French Guyana.
By the way Marty if you are still searching for thumbnail I can have a lot of Amazonicus.

Hey Chuck,
I will deflask the Tolumnia in about 4 months, they are already near adult size in their flasks. I will grow them a little bit just to be sure they are doing well and then after that I may sell some. I sow the seed at first to be able to do a complkete wall of them in my dart frog terrarium.

Take care

treefrog · #6 06-18-2005, 01:17 PM

Of course I<m in Canada, I live in Montreal.
The guy name Janeau is a good frien d of mine. So you went to Camp PAtawa in Kaw....the place is very nice and you must have done trap in the loggers road.

See ya
Math

Marty · #7 06-19-2005, 09:36 AM

HA HA ! Small World eh?! Yes, we collected all over and were based in Camp Patawa ! We trapped and mothed on loggers road and also, along the paved road and almost everyday on Janeu's property. We erected a 500Watt mercury vapour lamp and ran it off a generator, which we brought with us. That brought in a lot of insects. Big beetles, copeopterix (check out the tails! http://www.johncodygallery.com/photo..._semiramis.jpg ). We baited with fruit, crap, piss, rotten fish, etc at the end of the road (when you pull out of Janeau's and go right - don't remember exactly the name, but there were some nice trails where we got few agrias too and got into a little fight with a giant ant eater that had a problem with us....hehe)

Quote:

Originally Posted by treefrog

Of course I<m in Canada, I live in Montreal.
The guy name Janeau is a good frien d of mine. So you went to Camp PAtawa in Kaw....the place is very nice and you must have done trap in the loggers road.

See ya
Math