Acquiring Neofinetias Via EBay

[MattWoelfsen]

Thank you Quay and AnonYMous, good ideas. After these few months of acquisition, I feel like I have enough plants to grow and experiment with mounting some of them on rocks and other media as opposed to the traditional high mound sphagnum moss.

[Jayfar]

Heads up that the Kouen that japaneseorchids has up for bid Monday is the *other* Neo variety that shares the name Kouen. This is the shiny leaf variety, NOT the one with scarlet and yellow tiger variegation. Notice that the Kanji characters actually differ.

It is this Kouen (紅艶):

KOUEN has very shiny and glossy foliages compared to other FUKIRAN as you can see in third picture. Small variety and both front and back of leaf will be shiny. Very interesting variety. Flower is normal white flower as Neofinetia falcata and have wonderful fragrant. KOUEN is also called as BENITSUYA.

NOT this Kouen (虹炎):

KOUEN is very new variety found in last year.This variety came out from seedling of Amami furan and produce tiger stripe, scarlet pink variegation and ruby roots. Most of ruby roots variety are very expensive.
Variegation will be very similar to Hokage (hokage has ruby roots also), but the difference is the size. KOUEN stays in small and leaves grow tight. That is why when it become nice clump, is just so nice, beautiful. I like Hokage a lot, but if there were smaller variety which has same features as Hokage, I would go buy them!Still dealt in very high price in Japan too. Please do not confuse with another KOUEN 紅艶 (glossy folieage one). These are totally different plant. [emphasis added]

[bk10]

I wonder how much the Hokage version of Kouen goes for? I've been admiring pictures of that one for awhile now.

[Jayfar]

Originally Posted by bk10

I wonder how much the Hokage version of Kouen goes for? I've been admiring pictures of that one for awhile now.

The small single-growth one I got last month was listed on ebay at a starting price of 60, but was bid up a little too much, ultimately costing me 198.50. That may have been largely a function of over-exuberant bidding.

[MattWoelfsen]

There is a TAIGA 大河 that is a Hokage version. It is up for bid right now for $49.99.


Update...looks like no one wanted it! I was tempted but I resisted...

[Jayfar]

Originally Posted by MattWoelfsen

There is a TAIGA 大河 that is a Hokage version. It is up for bid right now for $49.99.


Update...looks like no one wanted it! I was tempted but I resisted...

Not a lot of color to it though. I guess it has potential in the right environment. There's a hokage for tomorrow, but not spectacular either.

[MattWoelfsen]

I have to say, this is the first Saturday and Sunday that I watched instead of bidding. I spent an entire morning Saturday, watering every single Neofinetia. That exercise got me to thinking how many plants I owned and that I really needed to stop buying plants. I say that knowing full well that there are a couple of plants up for auction tomorrow that looks very appealing.

[bk10]

Jayfar brings up an interesting point. How much variability is the within a cultivar. To say another way will a average Hokage color up with different/better culture?

[MattWoelfsen]

Originally Posted by bk10

Jayfar brings up an interesting point. How much variability is the within a cultivar. To say another way will a average Hokage color up with different/better culture?

Part of the challenge collecting and growing Neofinetia is the variability of any variety. For example, several pages back on this thread, Jayfar mentioned that he has two plants that have tiger stripe but one plant is larger than the second plant of the same name: Kara-Nishiki. The second plant is smaller and it is hoped it will retain its diminutive size, as in this instance, a smaller plant is much more prized.

The Hokage and Taiga plant recently available also fall in the same kind of variability. I have a Hokage, it is a nice healthy plant, but so far, the scarlet roots and leaves have not appeared on this plant. It will probably develop scarlet leaves with more light. The roots will emerge when the weather gets consistently warmer.

[MattWoelfsen]

Speaking Kouen, I just noticed there are two people bidding on this Kouen, it is now up to $37.00. I suppose they are not OB members?