Heavy scented Sophrocattleya
 

A plant of unknown parentage, with full round dark purple flowers. What makes this plant special is the strong unusual spicy fragrance of incense and cloves.
The tag says Sophrocattleya. Being unifoliat, flowering in October from a newly developed lead without a sheath, with fairly large flowers and with a broad lip leads to the following conjecture: Few influence of Sophronitis (if it were more, the lip would be smaller). Eventually C. walkeriana and Laelia pumila/dayana.
But I have no clue where the fragrance comes from.

Gorgeous flower and scented! Hard to ask for more than that.

Beautiful colors and form. Describe to us the fragrance?

Really gorgeous, what is the scent like?

Beautiful!

Mmm the scent sounds delicious. :biggrin:

It is a heavy dark fragrance that reminds of incense with a dash of cloves. Incense or Olibanum in Latin is the gum of an oriental tree (Boswellia sacra). It is widely used in temples and ceremonies and typical for religious celebrations in a catholic church. It contains Thujen and Myrcen, so think of Thuja tree, pine tree, or balm.
In short words, the fragrance is uncommon for Cattleya and typical for a Catholic church.

Most likely the scent is from the walkeriana. Their hybrids have very distinct wide lip and very distinct, strong scent.

Love the scented Cattleya's

Afaik as I'm making a HUGE compile of fragrant orchids*, scent does not come from the ex-Sophronitis side. I have listed quite a few that are spicy of some sort or "medical" but none has "incense" or "balm" as description, but I don't have the scents for all of them.


*more on this this winter :)