Are these real Orchids in my novel?
 

In the book I am reading one of the characters is selecting from amongst his orchids for ones to display for his visiting family. There are three mentioned and it's the last I am wondering about most.

The first he picks is a phalanopsis, with pale yellow flowers... so it could be anything.

But the second is Oncidium ornithorhynchum "bearing a cloud of dancing rosy-lilac blossoms of quaint birdlike form". First I was suprised to find the orchid exists then that the description seems acurate from this picture I found through google.

ONC00252 - Oncidium ornithorhynchum

So now I suspect the author knows something about orchids or has done some research.

I can't find reference to the third though, Fujiwara Azurine 'atmosphere'. Described as having "three splendid sky-blue flowers, each nearly eighteen centemeters wide".

Those flowers sound HUGE... can there really be orchids with flowers that large!:hmm

oh yeah for sure... in fact that's not all THAT large, my standard big white phalaenopsis i have in the bathroom are 12cm wide, and the big Cattleyas can get massive, like dinnerplate size.

The fujiwara might be the hybrid name of such a Cattleya. For instance there's one Cattleya var. fujiwara here:

orchids on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

hhhmmm... not sure... if you check in RHS you will find only

Cattleya Janice Fujiwara
Paphiopedilum Henrietta Fujiwara
Paphiopedilum Tom Fujiwara
Renanthopsis Helen Fujiwara
Rhynchosophrocattleya Helen Fujiwara
Rhynchosophrocattleya Henrietta Fujiwara
Vandaenopsis Henrietta Fujiwara
but that's the closest you get...

There seems to be a genus Fujiwarara (Cattleya x Brassavola x Laeliopsis) and also Fujioara (Ascocentrum x Trichoglottis x Vanda), but was not able to find more...

as per flowers larger than 18 cm, some cattleyas manage to get that big, and apparently also some Vandas (the largest Vanda I have seen however is 12 cm wide)... a Vanda would also match the colour description (the bluest Orchids I have ever seen!). Maybe Fujiwara Azurine Atmosphere is just the clonal name

:iagree: I was gonna say there is also another thread in here somewhere on largest flowers...and some were very very big...HUGE

If it is a Phalaenopsis species he is referring to it could be P. cochlearis or any one of these on this page - Phalaenopsis species by alphabetical order.
Some alba and flava forms of species are yellow(ish) also.
If it is a hybrid .. yes it could be one of many ..
Fujiwara is a name used in hybrids - I checked out the RHS registry and found 7 hits but none of them were Fujiwara Azurine ..

Ramon - ya beat me to it ;)

;) ;) ;) :waving

Good to see you back at the OB, Ramon .. you have been missed ;)

Lots of us authors who have detectives or characters who have orchids use real names. Even Rex Stout in the Nero Wolfe novels, though he knew very little about orchids

ditto... :)