Cattleya mossiae standard pink
 

The standard pink-flowered variety of the species. Flowers are about 6.5" wide.

Wow! Spectacular!

It's gorgeous! How many spikes do you have? I can never figure out how people can get so many blooms on a fairly small plant.

I finally have a sheath on mine, plus an old one from last fall or summer. Nothing in either one of them that I can see.

Thank you, both, for your feedback.

Silken, there are two spikes, with three blooms on each spike. C. mossiae isn't really a small plant (although nowhere near as big as some of the standard cattleya hybrids), but you're right in that it does produce a great display of pretty large blooms.

Do you give your plant a cool and dry winter rest? The trick with mossiae is to respect its dormancy during the winter and give it cooler temperatures, especially at night. My growing area fluctuates between highs in the upper 60s and lows anywhere in the 47 to 52 range. And the mossiaes only get watered maybe once every few weeks, and then only lightly.

Thanks for the info. I bought mine as a near bloom seedling from a place that I have noticed rather overstates how close to bloom many plants are. So it was likely a small seedling. Mine does get a good cool winter rest. It grows in an attached greenhouse on the Canadian prairies. So in winter the temps are 55F at night and 65F in the day. I tend to water everything a lot less in the winter as I lost many from root rot in my early years of growing. So it should get fairly good conditions. Last summer (which seemed wrong timing) it grew a large sheath on its newest growth. That turned brown over winter and it also grew another growth in the fall with a large green sheath. I don't know if either will produce buds since it is spring now and should have been in bloom already. Failing that maybe it is showing it is approaching maturity and will bloom next spring. I will maybe see if I can grow it in a cooler spot over winter but not sure I can do that and provide good light. The fact that it finally produced sheaths gives me some hope :)

Orchid of the month candidate!

Outstanding.

Great looking bloom and very well presented! Did you do any staking?

No staking required, Steve. One of the many good qualities of the species.

Beautiful!