Maxillaria variabilis 'Gold Country'

[Lil Duck]

A recent acquisition from Gold Country Orchids at the Pacific Orchid Exposition. A nice dark clone of this variable species. The new flowers have a (light) fragrance of fresh hay while the old flowers have a odd scent of caramel with just a hint of hay mixed in. Grown with 16 (60) degree nights and around 19 (66) to 21 (70) degree days, depending on how sunny the day is.

[Roberta]

Nice catch! I do love the gold tips on the segments setting off the deep red of the rest of the flower.

Hint: You can grow these a lot colder... mine (acclimated of course) live outside on my patio, so get whatever Mother Nature throws at them, including winter lows of 40 deg F or less.

[Lil Duck]

The flower pictured has now fallen, it opened on March 17th and fell last night on April 10th giving this flower a lifetime of 3.5 weeks or 25 days. The day before it fell the plant had 4 open flowers and 2 buds so I would say this plant is relatively happy with me... or it's going to die soon and these are death blooms.

[Roberta]

That is a terrific cultivar. Not going to die, it loves to keep popping out those beautiful little flowers. Actually, the whole species is like that. So many different color forms. I think maybe you need a yellow one and an almost-black one and...

[Lil Duck]

Originally Posted by Roberta

That is a terrific cultivar. Not going to die, it loves to keep popping out those beautiful little flowers. Actually, the whole species is like that. So many different color forms. I think maybe you need a yellow one and an almost-black one and...

Oh Roberta, such an enabler, there sure are a lot of cultivars I'm missing though... that clone 'Black Eyed Susan' is looking pretty nice...

[Roberta]

Yup, 'Black Eyed Susan' is another terrific one. As these get larger (but still stay small, a huge plus) they're in bloom almost all the time.