Dendrobium Formidable
 

is in spike I think.
This plant is a generous gift from an OB member (Thank you very much again, Mel), and has been under my care since late spring this year.

It took a while before it started to do any activity, but I was trying my best being patient.

During the summer, it began to develop a new growth, which at first looked almost like a rot to me because it was black swelling( and I thought, oh, my, there goes my dormant eye on this plant!) that I was not used to seeing on my other dendrobiums whose dormant eyes swells up green rather than black.

As it grew further, it could see the black color came from so many little hairs, and it did show some green underneath all those hairs. It began to look a little bit like a new shoot of some ferns.

The parent plants for this primary hybrid belong to the section Formasae (Nigrohirsutae Type).
The entire plant, canes, leaves back and fron, is covered with short black hair and the name Nigrohirsutae comes from just that characteristic of this type of plant.

Anyways, that little black swelling did turn into a new cane and now it is growing quite fast.

Today I noticed that what appears to be a spike is growing on top of an older mature cane.
I thought the plant was rather small, but I guess it is a flowering size.

I'm so excited!!! The flowers are supposed to be quite large on this hybrid and my anticipation starts today! :)

By the way, I grow this plant by the south facing windows getting direct sun through the window glass all day. It is in 4 in plastic pot with orchiata. I water about twice or three times a week.

Congrats! It looks Great :)

Sweet!

It is very slowly growing, but given the look of it, I think I will get at least two flowers.
These have huge cattleya-like flowers, so even just two flowers might look quite nice on such a small plant. :)

can't wait!!!

An Update
 

So, it looks like I will get one flower.
It will be the very first flowering of this plant.
I'm excited!

It's interesting how there is no hair on the bud itself.
This smooth light green little thing just pops out of this hairy structure. Very interesting to watch.

:) Sooo can't wait to see this! :cheer:

Ooh! Good info to know about the black coloration. Wouldn't you just die if you had cut that off?
I just bought one of these today and the vendor said that the flowers often come on the old canes so -don't cut them off (even the really old ones) because they can still produce blooms there for years.

Now the bud has grown quite big and it looks like it is ready to open anytime now!
The newer cane is also showing signs of developing flowers on the top end of it.
Yay!!!