Habenaria Medusa

[Daethen]

Can't wait to see the flowers. I love this one and really, really need to find a bulb or 2 of this one!!!

[orchidsarefun]

update. The flowers take a while to fully open - I would say at least 12hrs. They start out all white and then a brown/red stripe appears at the base of the sepals. You can see this patch on the 3rd photo - compare to the bloom on the 2nd photo.
This is a first rebloom so wasn't aware of all the ins-and-outs........and the fact that the spike takes about 2 months to fully develop.

[Paul]

Congrats! Those flowers are awesome. I've always wanted to try Habenaria but have been too intimidated. (Doesn't help that they bulbs are not easy to find nor inexpensive when I have found them.)

[NeofinetiaCanada2014]

Wow great job!!


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[orchidsarefun]

so this took a while to die down..........slow. I couldn't wait. I discovered that there are 2 fair-sized bulbs and one much smaller - which by the way corresponds to the plants that grew. I only planted 1 bulb initially so it seems like the propagation happens when they awake from dormancy. larger bulbs are 2-3 inches long.
I will be planting them in a mix of small to medium bark and a bit of charcoal this year - though the larger bark didn't seem to set it back at all. The slitted pot was ideal as the mix dried out quickly.
I used pollen from this plant and cross-pollinated with another Habenaria sp. Seeds at the lab, can't wait to see if they germinate.

[Tindomul]

Gorgeous!! I love the mystery these plants offer. I think I have to get me some Habenarias!

[RosieC]

Gorgeous plant. Really interesting to see the tubers.

[orchidsarefun]

there's a shoot evident on each tuber/bulb - the shoot on the right is most obvious as it's green and larger. These were overwintered in a bag of moist/mostly dry sphagnum moss.

Time for repotting - this time into a mix of fine seedling bark, perlite and long-fibered sphagnum. As these don't like to remain soggy I am going to use slitted pots. I thought of incorporating ordinary potting soil into the mix, but too scared . Has anyone used a different mix successfully ?
Hopefully I get more than one spike !


without the shoot, it would be difficult to see which way is up as these bulbs are odd-shaped !

[naoki]

Originally Posted by orchidsarefun

These were overwintered in a bag of moist/mostly dry sphagnum moss.

Very nice thread documenting their growth! So you dug up in March and kept in the plastic bag until June? Room temperature, or did it experience colder temp?

[orchidsarefun]

I suppose 'overwintered' is the wrong word to have used as it wasn't Winter at all - during dormancy all the tubers were in a bag of slightly moist-to-dry sphagnum moss. The ziploc bag was loosely sealed and clipped to the side of one of my plant stands with a butterfly clip. Room temperature throughout dormancy - so a minimum of 70f.
This treatment seems to have worked, we'll see...