Cattleya warneri amoena 'Dona Lena' x amesiana 'Memoria Roberto Kautsky'
 

This is a recent acquisition (May 2015, from Bela Vista). That's why it is flowering out of season (still in Brazillian season)!

I haven't had a big flower Cattleya species for a long time. But this flower reminded me about the excitement from my highschool era (30 years ago). My parents had a few Cattleyas which never flowered (among hundreds of Cymbidium). I read about the Cattleya care by myself, and decided to take care of them all by myself. And after a year, it rewarded me with a huge flower (the largest single flower I have ever seen at that time)!

It is interesting (but not surprising) that the flower is more of tipo even though the parents are paler colored forms. I'm guessing selfing of this would make some paler ones.

A bit more info at my Orchid Borealis blog site.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5794/...e381a09a_c.jpg
Cattleya warneri amoena 'Dona Lena' x amesiana 'Memoria Roberto Kautsky' on Flickr

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5772/...cf8a8521_c.jpg
Cattleya warneri amoena 'Dona Lena' x amesiana 'Memoria Roberto Kautsky'; on Flickr

What a showy species plant! Is it fragrant?

Gorgeous!

Looks good!

Love the colors and frills, nice.

Thank you.

It is fragrant. I don't know how to describe the fragrance, but it is pretty good.

Very pretty!

Is the amesiana a species or is it a varietal name? I have a purpurata v amesiana and had never heard the name before.

Brooke

Brooke, it is a color form (so this plant is not a hybrid). There are so many names for the color forms of Cattleya, so it is pretty confusing! For example, this article describes many varieties of C. intermedia (but amesiana isn't here, maybe C. intermedia doesn't have this color):
Brazilian Orchids - Orchid News 37

According to the description of C. warneri issue of Orchid Digest (mentioned in the blog), the petals/sepals of amesiana are paler/whitish pink. amoena is more white, and the lip mark is also paler. The article mentioned that it is sometime difficult to distinguish the palest amesiana from amoena.

Here is a link to Mauro Rosim's C. warneri amesiana (same clone as one of the parent of the plant I have).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rosim/10068214156

So it is a varietal name - warneri v amesiana. I was confused when you didn't use the species name along with the amesiana.

Your description of the color is exactly the color of my purpurata v amesiana. Thanks for the info.

Brooke

Gorgeous blooms!