Orchid of the Week: Brassolaeliocattleya Hawaiian Passion

After a multi-week break, Orchid of the Week is back! And this time I chose my newest orchid, Brassolaeliocattleya Hawaiian Passion “Carmela.” It’s a gorgeous specimen that I bought on my visit to Cal Pacific Orchid Farm a few weeks ago. The plant that I bought was in bud, but I snapped a pic of a beautiful one in bloom while I was there:

I loved it so much that I just had to bring one home with me — and it was only $24 ($26 with tax). A really great deal! This orchid’s blooms are quite fragrant, very lemony. As I’ve mentioned before, I really love orchids with green blooms, because they are just so damn unique.

You can see why I was drawn to this orchid!

The orchid I chose had lots of firm, shiny green buds:

A couple of the buds were beginning to open up by the time we left San Diego to fly back to NYC. I could even detect a hint of the lemony fragrance. But here’s where it gets sad: the buds started to turn a teeny bit yellow in the airport when we were waiting to board the plane (for the second time, due to a fuel leak from the wing when we first boarded). I don’t know if it was the airport air or the general change in environment, but it was unfortunately the beginning of the end for these buds. Within three days of returning home, the buds turned into super sad bananas:

Very, very sad. So, I cut the spike because it was just too painful to look at. The plant itself seems to be doing just fine, though, so hopefully I can keep it nice and healthy and get it to bloom for real in the future.

A little bit about this type of orchid: as you can probably tell from the name, it is a hybrid of Brassavola, Laelia, and Cattleya orchids. The scientific classification is as follows:

Subfamily: Epidendroideae

Tribe: Epidendreae

Subtribe: Laeliinae

Alliance: Hybrids

Genus: Brassolaeliocattleya