Hello...and the boring Neo Aojiku Yoroidōshi (now a favorite).

[K-Sci]

By way of introduction since this is my first post. I've collected orchids for 45 years and Neofinetia for about ten, At one time my wife and I ran an online orchid selling business.

Okay, I recently bought an Aojiku Yoroidōshi with considerable apprehension. It is small (~3") and it isn't a showy, fancy, rare, or expensive variety. It's reluctant to flower and flowers from the apex, so the fan is dead-headed, stops growing and must branch. But...it is now one of my favorites.

After spending a half hour repeatedly editing and increasing compression, I finally got a photo uploaded. The mods should consider updating the max image sizes from the 1990s.

[estación seca]

Welcome to the Orchid Board!

I love photos of orchid haystacks.

[DirtyCoconuts]

Welcome to the family

Very cool looking and extremely happy neo

[K-Sci]

Owing to my 30 minute struggle compressing an image, and having lost my second post, which was lengthy, due to an "expired token". I'm going to post the description of Aojiku Yoroidoushi I wrote in my log book instead.

"Aojiku Yoroidoushi is a small but unique namiba hariba (standing needle leafed) variety with a very unique overall appearance. The prefix aojiku indicates a green stem, which gives it a cleaner look than Yoroidoushi, its mud stemmed counterpart. These are old varieties, but if the name seems new it is because they were relatively recently re-registered and given new names by Japan’s Fuukiran Society. Their former names were Aojiku Chousentetsu and Chousentetsu, respectively.

Four well established characteristics shared by these two varieties are small size (~3”), a reluctance to flower, the absence of variegation, and an absence of interesting leaf textures or colors. Obviously, there are other reason why they are categorized as Zenseihin (all popular varieties), in Japan’s Fuukiran Meinkan. These Neofinetia, now their common name, have standing needle leaves that stack nicely and hold very well without yellowing. They present an overall very healthy and unique appearance while being very robust, tolerating less than ideal condition, and resisting blemishes due to disease or genetic weakness. Further, they very quickly grow to become beautiful kabudachi or ookabu (clumps or very large clumps), and ironically, the reluctance to flower contributes to their beauty.

These two varieties flower from the growth’s apex, dead-heading the growth and forcing it to branch. If the mature growths branched annually, the plants would quickly become an unsightly thicket. Not flowering allows the growths to stack many leaves before branching, keeps the stems free of dried flower stalk stubs, and the energy that would go to flowering contributes to vitality instead."

Translation: Green Stemmed Armor Piercer
Growth Form : Compact, standing needle leaves.
Leaf Appearance : Upright somewhat straight
Flower : White
Tsuke : Straight
Stem Color : Green
Root Tip Color : Green
Phenotype Inheritance : <2%
Fukiran Meikan Registered : old