If you could have one Phal species book what would it be?

[OzPhal]

So, I'm looking at getting a good book on Phal species including growing information etc - any suggestions?

[billc]

I've seen many people refer to Eric Christenson's Monograph on Phals.
Phalaenopsis: a monograph - Eric A. Christenson - Google Books
I've never had the opportunity to see it and I don't know how much cultural info you would find. The Baker culture sheets will give you a good idea of what the plants natural conditions are.

Bill

[Paul Mc]

I would personally purchase (and have) the Baker's book. It's got far more than just phal's in it though as it was intended to be alphabetically produced but not all of them were produced, only three. Look it up on Amazon, you might be able to find them rather cheap there, that's what I did.

[The Mutant]

What is the title of the Baker's book?

[tucker85]

I have three books on phals and none of them has specific culture information for each species. All three books have one section on general culture for all phals.

'Phalaenopsis - A Monograph' by Eric Christenson is very heavy on description of each species, the flower and the variations found in nature. It also has a lot of information about the geographic distribution of each species. It doesn't have a lot of information about the growing conditions in the wild and the chapter on culture is just average. It covers lots of phal species. This book is in a small format. It's not a big 'coffee table' type book.

'Moth Orchids' by Steven Frowine is a book mostly about the history of breeding phals. It has a paragraph on many species but mostly just the species used in breeding. It gives a description of the species, it's origin and what traits it brings to breeding. I think the culture section of this book is very good. It's the book I use whenever I want information on phal culture.

'Culture of the Phalaenopsis Orchid' by Bob Gordon is an entire book on phal culture. I believe it's out of print. I bought mine from a used book store through Amazon.com. This book has a tremendous amount of information about every aspect of culture. But some of the information is a bit dated. Still there's a lot of good information in it. It's all general culture. Nothing specific to each species. My copy is in spiral notebook format.

[Paul Mc]

I think it's orchid species culture.

[aberstwyth]

Does anyone know where I could get a copy of the Christenson book? Amazon don`t seem to have it, nor do any of the bookshops in Australia

[tucker85]

Originally Posted by aberstwyth

Does anyone know where I could get a copy of the Christenson book? Amazon don`t seem to have it, nor do any of the bookshops in Australia

Here, in the US, Amazon.com has both new and used editions of the book. I'm suprised that it's not available where you are.

[Paul Mc]

Have you checked around at libraries near you? It's a long shot, but they might have one.