Vanda "Blue Stick" is a cross between Vanda Kimigayo x Manuvadee and registered as Vanda Tristar Blue, but i can find both names used by different vendors.
The first time i saw it i tought it was articficially dyed. The flowers are blue/purple at first, so it does not have a true blue color, but so far it is the "bluest" color i have seen on any vanda with large flowers.
The best way to get the right color, is to attend a show and pick out the ones you want.




My Ascocenda Princess Mikasa "White Angel" is flowering now and the colours in the picture are true :)
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-i...6/DSC_0011.JPG

It is gorgeous! I just recently discovered that there is white variety besides pink and blue. Does it bloom frequently or just once a year?

Because of this type of confusion I have decided to try and only buy orchids while they're in bloom. Even if it's a clone, you can't really know exactly what its color and form will be unless you see it in person on that plant. Sometimes that isn't possible, but it's a good rule of thumb. Or I might buy one that isn't blooming if it is a part of a group of a clone which has one blooming. Sometimes selllers at shows will have an example plant in bloom, and plants from the same group for sale that aren't in bloom.

orchideya :The Princess is in bloom for the second time this year :)

I don't remember seeing one in person but from pictures some member of the genus Thelymitra seem pretty blue to me.

There are no true blue flowers in nature. All "blues" are actually various shades of violet that appears blue because of how the cells reflect light. Also, there are no "blue" birds in nature either. They're all grey, but they appear blue because of how the light is reflected off the feathers. (Sorry; the "bluebird of happiness" is actually grey.)

In modern digital photography, "blue" flowers appear unnaturally blue because of a phenomenon called the "reverse Ageratum effect" where the digital sensors either perceive more blue than is seen by the human eye or because of over correction by the processor. This is in contrast to the old "Ageratum effect" from color film days where the effect is believed to be based on “an anomalous reflectance due to the fact that some pigments reflect infrared light that is picked up as red by the film“. This was first discovered while photographing Ageratums for the first colour seed catalogues.

Cheers.
Jim

Wow! That’s good information. I figured there had to be a reason but I didn’t know what it was.

Yes in birds and butterflies the blue appears through reflection or iridenscence, but when it comes to plants I disagree, blue does exist. It's a matter of plant pigments and plant chemistry. Anthocyanin pigments range from red to blue, and the flower pH will in part determine at which end of the range the color will be. Some Anthocyanins form complexes with elements such as iron, magnesium, cobalt or calcium and lead to more stable blue anthocyanins; ie. the true blues.

Thanks Jim and Camille for such sound information. The closest blue vanda I have seen is a Coerulea strain hybrid being sold on Ebay. It all happened so fast as I was outbid...grrrr

This is why I take my pictures in Raw format ( I have DSLR) and correct the color to what I saw with my own eyes. When I use my point in shoot camera the colors never are to true color.

In the hibiscus world they use the word blue but there are no true blue hibiscus. so are greyish with some purple pigment so it gives the appearance of blue.