Firt time blooming Cattleya labiata var. semi alba
 

Here's another plant I've been raising since it was a seedling. These are the first flowers, one of them ended up cross-pollinated by a huge black wasp (or something similar).
I happened to see the pollination process. The wasp was strong enough to push the lip down with its legs using the column as a support for the back. The first flower to be visited was C. labiata var. mosca, and when the wasp left the flower it had the pollinias on the back. The insect flew a around for some minutes, came back, landed exactly on the lip of this semi alba and went directly to the tube, again pushing the lip down to collect something. It struggled a little to get back, but when it got out I noted that it still had pollinias on the back. Looking at the column tip I noticed that the pollinias had been taken off and looking at the stigma I could see that there were pollinias in there, so the pollination had happened. But, what was the pollen deposited? The one from the var. mosca or the one from the semi alba? I guess I will never know!!

Cattleya labiata Lindl. var. semialba on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Thats a great semi alba for sure! So are you going to keep the pollinated flower or toss it?

Beautiful catt. :)

terrific

No, Steve, I am cutting it off. The plant is still very young and a pod now may delay the normal development. In some cases, if it is young and not strong enough a pod can kill the plant.

Thanks, Misty. I think the flower will get a little better as the plant ages and get stronger. Semi albas are really beautiful flowers!

Beautiful, and an interesting story to boot!!

Very lovely and pristine, good growing!!

:yikes: Thats good to know!!

Another beauty! Thanks for sharing her story, too, it was quite interesting.

Mauro, you're so lucky blooming seedlings. I like your flowers.
Isn't it great to see a young plant grow for some years, until the moment it shows his face?:)

Hugs.