Tiny buds! (L. astrophora "Stalky")

[Fishkeeper]

At least this one is relatively obvious. I'm sitting about 8 feet away from the terrarium now, and I can juuust barely see the purple from these blooms. There's probably about a hundred flowers on this little thing.

I found my older pics.


That first one is April 4th, when I first got it. You can see the box in the background. The second is April 11th, just placed in the terrarium. It's probably 150% of the size it was then, and blooming like heck. After it blooms, I'm going to reposition it a little and try to take a small division for a friend, and then I'm going to let it grow. Interested to see how many flowers it can put out if I give it a few years.

[WaterWitchin]

TaDah! From little purple balloons to stars! I love the look of both. :

[Fishkeeper]

I found a jeweler's loupe. Holding it and my phone still enough to get clear pics turned out to be nearly impossible, though.


A lot of the flowers seem to be in the process of dying and falling off, having evidently run out of time. So, since it's losing the flowers anyway and it's not a massive loss if it freaks out and loses a few more, I took it out of its niche back there and tried to divide it. Only, I couldn't see any way to divide it easily, and I was really scared to hurt it, so I chickened out.
But I did find this nice, mature keiki, stuffed in the back. This is probably pretty close to blooming size, right? I'm going to be visiting some friends in August, and this is a gift for them. They have a small commercial greenhouse, and a section of single plants that they keep as fun plants instead of commercial ones to be propagated and sold. I figure this little guy will be a great addition to their section of fun mini orchids. And, hey, maybe they can propagate and sell it eventually.