Experience on Machiela Orchids?
 

I saw an orchid on my want list last week from OrchidsAmore/Pelican Coast Farms. It was the Cycnoches chlorochilon, but it was listed as Cycd. in the listing, and Cyc. in a photo. Alarm bells went off, and I distinctly remember bad Facebook reviews of mislabeled plants, and the fact that reviews in general are mixed. Emails were unanswered.

This time, I wandered upon Machiela's Orchids, which sells a Oncidium wydleri on their "special collection" list. I've been collecting parent plants of Sharry Baby. One of them is Oncidium altissimum, which despite being the type species and called "very common", I can't find a single vendor that offers it. The altissimum has a synonym, wydleri, but wydleri is often confused for the Oncidium baueri, which is now considered an invalid homonym. eBay reviews are mostly positive for this vendor. The negative ones all complained of small, dead plants and a couple mislabeled ones, one of which the vendor shot back a snarky comment (red flag).

So I could email them to ask, but I figure I'd ask something here first.

1. Does anyone have any recent experience with Machiela's? I can only find posts from 2009.
2. Does anyone have any other leads for the Oncidium altissimum?

Have you checked with Andy's Orchids for Onc. altissimum? The lack of a listing on his website doesn't mean anything... website probably has less than 20% of the species that he has, so an email inquiry is in order if there is something that you're interested in.

I got a Den. Hibiki from them last year. It bloomed and it seems right... I would say that the plant label had two names on it, one with the correct one and the other side another species. Perhaps they reuse some of their labels and the confusion results there.

The plant was a nice size for the price and the plant arrived healthy from FL to CA.

That was my only experience with them.

Reuse something costing less than a penny? I wonder if they washed it.