Question: Ascocentrum garayi and miniatum

[Plantcrazed101]

I read somewhere that these are fragrant, has anyone noticed a fragrance to these?

[estación seca]

Sadly, Ascocentrums not only are not fragrant, their hybrids are also non-fragrant, even with other parents that are fragrant.

[Maxx]

A quick question to the experts out there: Based on the aforesaid what do you think, is this a miniatum or a garayi? I purchased it as a miniatum, but I guess its rather a garayi

Picture

[NatalieS]

I've looked through a number of threads on the board looking for miniatum, and the trend I'm seeing is that someone thinks they have miniatum, only to find out that it's garayi (I looked through the more recent threads, so forgive me if I missed something in any older threads).

So my question is: if they're all turning out to be garayi on blooming, does anyone on the forum have actual miniatum in their collection?

[Waterdog111]

My garayii (hopefully)is hanging on my coastal oak in the front yard and hope for blooms soon.
Those pics will help confirm identity,thanks Ray!

[Jmoney]

If I'm not mistaken, and I could be, garayi leaves can get very magenta speckled with high light. I have a clone of an awarded miniatum that seems more like garayi to my semi-trained eye

[NatalieS]

Originally Posted by Jmoney

If I'm not mistaken, and I could be, garayi leaves can get very magenta speckled with high light. I have a clone of an awarded miniatum that seems more like garayi to my semi-trained eye

Orchid species says miniatum has v-shaped leaves, so I went looking through images for plants with straighter leaves, but even those looked like garayi to my eyes when looking at the flower... I find this strange mix-up very amusing - makes me more eager to be able to flower the plant I have. (hopefully you'll know what you have soon Waterdog!)

If garayi has the stronger orange colour, it might make sense it would be more prone to speckling because of greater pigment? Just guessing at this point, but what you are saying makes sense in my mind at least.

[estación seca]

I can't get to orchidspecies.com right now. But the distinguishing features will be in the flowers. Vegetative characteristics are so variable, depending on the environment.

[NatalieS]

Originally Posted by estación seca

I can't get to orchidspecies.com right now. But the distinguishing features will be in the flowers. Vegetative characteristics are so variable, depending on the environment.

Thanks es, yes, we were not trying to specifically identify the plants from leaves - we were just musing about it. The actual question I posed was if anyone on the forum had actual miniatum, and not garayi.

Jmoney says that they do, but that it still looks like garayi to them.

[Waterdog111]

I started moving mine around in the yard to get a different feeling on its preference to light. Seems like it doesn’t like as much as my vandas . It’s actually looking much better now and getting nice roots, so heres hoping. Oh yea, the Vanda by my name has a new spike and four or five blooms opening up, the ones pictured have been gone couple of months now.