C. Nancy Off ‘Linwood’
 

I can’t take all the credit for the bloom, I bought this original division from Waldor in November in sheath, but I did get it across the finish line. There’s definitely a lot to like about the old standard Cattleya’s! The flowers are about 7” across. My wife isn’t always thrilled when she sees another plant coming upstairs from the basement, but she was very impressed with this. Sorry for the photo quality, I couldn’t find a spot that gave the blooms justice. I’m excited for what it will do next year!

I think this cultivar is second to none when it comes to white cattleyas. You should let your wife know that this was a great purchase!

To the best of my knowledge, this plant goes back to the cut flower trade days. It was registered with the RHS in 1956.

It earned an AM/AOS in 2009, with 89 pts!!!

My plant is a meristem, but it is incredibly vigorous. Last time I repotted, I broke off 2 single pseudobulbs by mistake when I was trying to divide it. I potted them up in 3" pots with spaghnum; they each produced a growth about half the size of the mature PB, but both produced a sheath and a single flower!

Kim, you're right about the cut flowers; I believe Waldor had a bunch of Nancy Offs for their cut flower market of years gone by. They assigned them numeric codes. 'Linwood' used to go by '1010' I believe. When it got its 89 point AM they gave it the 'Linwood' name. I got my original piece at a show some 5 years ago and it has always bloomed with perfect flowers. Long lasting and heavenly fragrance. I have another one of their Nancy Off cultivars; it is certainly nice but it ain't Linwood which is hands down better than any FCC white I have! The only knock is that it doesn't give you a ton of flowers. I think it was awarded with two (massive) flowers, and I think I saw it with 3 once. I have never gotten more than 2. Yet.