Jewel Orchids!

[greenbean]

Originally Posted by TheBlazingAugust

LOVELY!!! And silken, in case you were wondering, there is a Canadian vendor that has a lot of jewel orchids. Hawaiian Botanicals in BC has a great selection of jewel, hardy, and Brazilian orchids. They also have MANY carnivorous plants, and oodles of other things. OMG!!! There is so much I want to buy I don't know where to start!

I looked at their site too! I found it looking for pictures online of the jewels I wanted to buy to try to narrow it down. I want them all! As soon as I find more room I'm getting more!!!!

[Lagoon]

I agree with you Evan, they just don't look as beautiful and vibrant they way they do with the naked eye. Must see in person type of orchid

Well anyways, I just love these guys. If I had the room I would probaly collect all the jewels I could find. I love you're choices and I'm sure you'll make room for more.

I got mine from clouds, very happy with them

[FairyInTheFlowers]

Originally Posted by Lagoon

I got mine from Clouds, very happy with them

I noticed yesterday that they had them, and I was totally eyeing them up. They are so going on the wishlist!

[wong]

Beautiful~love its gorgeous foliages
But it's quite hard to grow here during summer.

[kerokero]

I happened across the Hawaiian Botanicals site and was not happy to find they were in canada! Darn it! They actually had a couple I was looking for.

I had a pretty good collection but unfortunately lost a good portion of it in a move. Thankfully some of the less rare... most can probably be replaced by Imperial Exotics (I prefer the species to hybrids). Then I see some of the plants on other sites for plants available in Europe, Russia, and japan and I get all grrrrrrr again! Seems easy to find pictures, but hard to find places that still seem to be communicating with people and haven't updated their site in over a year :/ Or the US jewel orchid powerhouse Hoosier shutting down

Seems to be blooming season here... the majority of the collection is settling into new culture conditions (I'm trying a bunch on s/h) and only three new buys (to replace lost plants) are in bloom right now, and a fourth plant (a NOID that was supposed to be Macodes petola but is clearly more along the lines of an Anoectochilus!) is on the way. Greenbean, I imagine you'll be in a similar situation with yours next year

[Bud]

Those orchids are really cool...in fact mine are budding right now: I will post pics when they open

[greenbean]

Originally Posted by Bud

Those orchids are really cool...in fact mine are budding right now: I will post pics when they open

Neat! Some of these jewels have really unusual flowers that are beautiful in their own way. I still like them mostly for the leaves, but the flowers are cool too! Looking forward to seeing yours!

[kerokero]

I need to dig up the macodes petola pic I took when they first came into bloom... maybe a 1/2in wide by 1/4in tall! Not too many either, and without the long lower part of the flower so characteristic of some of the jewels like Anoectochilus.

The L. discolor x A. formosanus has so far had the most flowers (over 20), which started out a light butter yellow that would fade to clear white as the flower aged. It's also got the tallest flower spike I've had with my jewels - for some reason the cross actually makes for a LARGER plant, and what I'd normally expect to be a foot to a foot and a half spike is clearly close to two! I've got pics of some of the flowers, but none showed that buttery yellow because I oooed and ahhhhed and didn't get the camera for that part, and now they are all white! It's an interesting quirk on the A. formosanus flower... it has distinctly L. discolor foliage (but rounder and with white viens from the pollen parent) but the flower clearly shows the dad! Less frills, and the color is more washed out, but much more of the Anoectochilus tongue going on!

A. chapaensis is a favorite for me though, and I'm happy it's blooming for me this year... the flowers are just starting to really unfurl and even though they aren't big by orchid standards, their brilliant lemon yellow on dark red stem makes for something eye catching on my plant stand! I have few plants that rival that yellow (and I grow a lot on nice gesneriads and begonias!) but I don't know how well it was carried over in the hybrids. In this case the flower is actually a solid reason to get it! In the next week or so I'm hoping to photograph it as the flowers really open up and show their shape

I'm really excited for the NOID to bloom, but that can easily be another month. Not only will it help significantly with ID, but if it's what I think it it is then I will also get a show of one of my favorite jewel flowers (what it lacks in A. chapaensis color it makes up for in flair!) - one that my other (definate ID) form won't give me this year since it mostly died off from the move and is just coming back!

Everyone take pics when yours spikes!

I hope greenbean doesn't feel too left out... what a couple of his may lack in flair when blooming they make up for with mature foliage - Dossinia marmorata var. dayii and Macodes sanderiana are easily two of the most stunning plants you'll ever see - and you need to see them in person because it's an iridescent crystal rainbow that film just can't totally capture!

[greenbean]

No worries, Kerokero. I don't feel left out. My plants are all small starts and will probably take a year or two to bloom, if they ever do. But I grow them just for the foliage and am perfectly happy with that. However, I do enjoy seeing others' flowers, so share away!

[kerokero]

I've attached pics of The Macodes petola bloom (single little flower, not many on the spike), and a fresh opened Ludisia discolor x Anoectochilus formosanus (large cluster of flowers).

The Macodes petola flower is tiiiiiiiiiiiny! I did not use a macro lens with this photo, so I'm pretty impressed that the photo managed to show a 1/2in wide x 1/4in tall flower! No big, not many, but rather cool in it's own right... and may take a dissecting scope to be able to see the parts I need to in order to try pollination

I know the Ludisia discolor x Anoectochilus formosanus flower is a new one because it is flushed yellow, which all have since faded to a nice clear white typical of L. discolor. It lacks the large frills of A. formosanus thanks to the L. discolor parentage, but you can see an attempt at making them a little bit on the ruffles on the side of the labellum! The A. formosanus also managed to keep the labellum nice and large (reduced in L. discolor), but L. discolor managed to enlarge the upper petals (sepals?), which are much more reduced on A. formosanus (in favor of the large and complex labellum). I should dig up a pic of the plant... interesting mix of the parents itself!

These two are clearly across the spectrum in terms of flower. The hybrid's flowers are much, MUCH larger being a bit more typical in size as an Anoectochilus, if not a touch larger (but the hybrid itself is a bit large!). My A. chapaensis has opened up a number of flowers but seems determined not to do it completely (the labellum is still curled up in a tube!) so I haven't photographed it's bright yellow flowers yet and it's not letting me do a fair size comparison!

Don't worry too much about the age of the plants - my next one coming into spike is very young, and a number of the jewels you own are known for blooming very small. You may prefer to pinch a developing spike so the plant concentrates on growing more than showing but that's your call. I'd probably pinch the developing spike on the tiny plant if I didn't need the flower so badly in an effort to ID it!

[edited for stupid typos!]