Fragrant Catasetinae
 

I use to not think of Catasetums as being fragrant, but several are. I was curious which ones have nice scents.

My Ctsm. Bela Vista's Sangria 'Jamie's Purple Passion' HCC/AOS x Ctsm. pileatum v. imper is fragrant in the morning. It starts out medicinal than progresses to a nodosa/camphor scent.

I hear Clowesia have wonderful fragrances. A friend of mine describes Cl. russeliana as a really nice bath salt.

Is there a difference between male and female flowers?

I have yet to meet one that didn't have fragrance. Many are somewhat medicinal in their aromas...medicinal or camphor-ish (as you stated)...but I've never smelled one that I hated. Most I like.

Ctsm. fimbriatum often has a fresh pleasing scent. Also Dresslerias, Clowesias (rosea, dodsoniana, russelliana), some Mormodes (ephippilabia) and of course Cycnoches (warscewiczii, lehmannii), to name a few examples that come to my mind.

I have read that Cl. rosea has a cinnamon/citrus scent and warczewitzii has a ginger citrus scent.

Clowesia rosea has never smelled like cinnamon to me. If anything, it is closer to smelling like citrus with honey. Cinnamon-like smells are very distinguishable. The fragrance on this orchid is not terribly distinct.

---------- Post added at 05:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:07 PM ----------

Clowesia rosea is monoecious, (has both male and female parts on one flower).

I believe species within the genus Clowesia are generally monoecious. If there are any outliers, I'm not aware of them.

I'm not certain that this species is easy to produce selfings of. I tried once, and none of them took even in the least.

If you're looking for these, they're extremely hard to find.

Thanks for the info Phillip. Yes I would like to get one of these one day. They are incredibly beautiful!

Interesting you said the flower are monecious. The AOS article said they are perfect as does orchidspecies.com but wikipedia said they were sometimes unisexual.

Any idea what the scent of Cl. amazonica is like?

Fyi, monoecious is having the male and female reproductive organs in separate flowers on the same plant. Clowesia are suppose to have perfect flowers (male and female organs in a flower). Most Catasetums are dioecious ( having male and female reproductive organs in separate plants).

Catasetum can also have both male and female flowers on the same spike! My Ctsm fimbriatum loves to do it!

I've never grown Clowesia amazonicum, so I couldn't say what they smell like.

This is another one that is difficult to find.

I guess the word "monoecious" can be used differently by some people. With the more common definition of the word being the way you describe it, (a male flower and a female flower on the same plant). The way I learned this word was that on one plant each flower would contain both male and female parts.

If it is easier for other people to understand, and to avoid further confusion, then from now on, I will use the term "perfect flower" to mean a plant that has a flower that contains both male and female organs in them.

As far as I know, Clowesia have flowers that have both male and female parts in one flower. Keeping in mind that I'm not certain if there are any outliers that may stray from the norm.

Although, yes, Cycnoches and Catasetum are more prone to being monoecious in the sense that on one plant they can have both male flowers and female flowers on the same plant at times. It is not always the case, but it can happen. They sometimes display dioecious habits, where one plant has all male flowers, and another plant has all female flowers.

Clowesia amazonica [Note: gender of a species must agree with the gender of the genus.] was recently described so I guess it's not readily available in the trade. I saw that Bela Vista offered this species in Redlands several years ago. It looks very similar to warczewitzii.