Orchid of the Whenever I Get Around to It Week is back today with Tolumnias! In my most recent post I bragged about one of my Tolumnia plants being in spike, so I thought now would be a good time to feature this pretty mini orchid. Tolumnia blooms come in a variety of bright, cheery colors like this specimen that I saw at the NYBG’s Orchid Show earlier this year:
I’m WAY overdue for an orchid of the week post—or any post, really. So sorry about that, folks! I hope you’ll forgive me for being totally MIA. This week’s featured orchid is inspired by my mom, who texted me a photo of her blooming Brassavola nodosa yesterday. So in honor of her good growing, this post is about the B. nodosa!
This orchid is native to Mexico, the West Indies, Venezuala, and Peru. It’s known as the “Lady of the Night” orchid because it is fragrant, but only in the evening. Some say its fragrance is citrusy and gardenia-like, which sounds rather lovely to me. Let’s have a look at some photos, shall we?
Surprise! Bet you thought you weren’t going to see an Orchid of the Week post today, didn’t you? This regular feature has totally fallen by the wayside lately, and for that I apologize. I’ve actually been busier with work over the past few weeks, and then last Friday I was out and about preparing for that hurricane thing that happened.
Anyway, this week I’m featuring another orchid from my own collection, the Dendrobium aggregatum. For the record, mine has not bloomed yet, but I’ve only had it for a few months. This orchid is a bright, cheery plant that can produce loads of yellow blooms:
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:
This week’s orchid is the Dendrobium Green Lantern, in honor of the movie that comes out in theaters today. Okay, so this is just a good excuse to post a picture of Ryan Reynolds in costume:
On to the Green Lantern orchid. The Dendrobium Green Lantern is a lovely hybrid of Thai and Vietnamese species (Dendrobium Dawn Maree x Dendrobium cruentum) with a furry coral-colored lip and white petals with light green striping.
I’m not really sure where the “Green Lantern” name came from, because there are certainly much greener orchids out there (like the Aeranthes grandiflora, which I featured awhile back). But hey, it’s still gorgeous no matter what. And who knows—maybe it has some sort of superpowers. 😀
Last week I featured the tallest orchid in the world, so this week I’m going to talk about the smallest orchid in the world: Platystele jungermannioides. This little guy was discovered accidentally by American botanist Lou Jost as he was inspecting a completely separate plant from Ecuador. He found it growing among the roots of the other plant! According to an article in The Independent, this orchid is 2.1 mm wide; here’s a photo with a ruler for reference:
