Pretty picture: Rhyncattleanthe Mary Weiss (?)

Yet another roller-coaster in trying to track down an orchid name.

So. The tag said "C Mary Weiss." The International Orchid Registry doesn't have a Cattleya Mary Weiss, but it does have a Rhyncattleanthe Mary Weiss. So I was like, cool, problem solved.

And then I looked for photos of this orchid in previous years, as I do, and found one from the 2013 show that looks nothing like this. Where this one is mostly white, with a lavender / orange / magenta labellum, the other Rhyncattleanthe Mary Weiss is mostly pink, shading into coral or orange here and there, and then with a pink / coral / orange / magenta lip.

So, great. While it's possible, I guess, that they could be very different seedlings from the same grex (and it's worth noting that the shape of the flowers is almost exactly the same in both cases, whatever the colors might be), I wanted to find confirmation that the grex had that much range in color. So I went searching.

Which is how I discovered that Rhyncattleanthe Mary Weiss is completely ogooglebar. Why? Well, both "Mary" and "Weiss" are common enough names that there are lots of people by the name "Mary Weiss," which would be a problem in any case, but more particularly, one of the singers in The Shangri-Las is named Mary Weiss. So a first search for Mary Weiss will get you more than you ever wanted to know about "Leader of the Pack,"


but nothing about orchids.

Okay, you're thinking, so just search for "Mary Weiss orchid," or maybe "Rhyncattleanthe Mary Weiss," then.

If only it were so easy, because there's a Mary Weiss who was famously big into orchids, presumably the Mary Weiss that this grex is named for. So any search of "Mary Weiss orchid" gets you stories about Mary Weiss' love of orchids, and "Rhyncattleanthe Mary Weiss" yields every web page where Mary Weiss and Rhyncattleanthe are both mentioned. Of which there are many. Because Mary Weiss was super into orchids. Plus of course some percentage of the information about the grex would have the plant listed under the obsolete name Cattleya Mary Weiss instead.

Presumably, it would be possible to get to images of Rhyncattleanthe Mary Weiss if you're already in an orchid photo database, but I don't actually have one of those bookmarked (partly because I've been unimpressed with the quality of the ones I've seen -- they generally have lots of names but are not so good with photos).

Rhyncattleanthe Mary Weiss = Rhyncattleanthe Memoria Christine Sineni x Rhyncholaeliocattleya George King (Ref.)

I did manage to locate a large group of photos of pollen parent Rhyncholaeliocattleya George King last March when I was preparing these posts, at orchidroots.org, but even that was a pain in the ass, because orchidroots.org changed into orchidroots.com at some point over the last year so my initial link was broken and I had to search for orchidroots.org to find orchidroots.com. In any case, the range of colors of George King (variously white, pink, yellow, coral, lavender, or orange, if the photos are to be believed) makes it plausible that Mary Weiss might be similarly variable, so there's a good chance that this plant and the 2013 plant are in fact from the same grex and are both properly called Mary Weiss. I would check the Mary Weiss photos on orchidroots.com for myself, except that there are no photos on the Mary Weiss page. Because of course there aren't. And there doesn't seem to be anything about the seed parent, Rhyncattleanthe Memoria Christine Sineni, anywhere on the internet either.

So I'm basically left to throw my hands in the air and just say I don't know if this is correctly identified. It may be correct to call this plant and the 2013 plant Rhyncattleanthe Mary Weiss, and if forced to guess, I'd guess that these are both Mary Weiss, but that's me gambling on orchid show tags being reliable. And if we've learned nothing in the last seven years, it's that orchid show tags are not reliable.

Pretty picture: Guarianthe aurantiaca

Except for 2013, I've gotten a photo of Guarianthe aurantiaca¹ every year since I started going to the orchid shows: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015.

I don't know if it's the same specimen every year or not, but it'd be cool if it were. (Why would that be cool? I . . . I don't know. It just would.)

The species also appears to be popular for breeding purposes; several of its offspring have shown up in previous years:

Laeliocattleya Rojo x Cattleya aurantiaca (2010)
Cattleya Confetti x C. aurantiaca (2011)
Guaricyclia Kyoguchi (2012)
Guarianthe x guatemalensis (2015)
Cattlianthe Jewel Box 'Orange' (2015)

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¹ (Previously Cattleya aurantiaca)

Pretty picture: Cattleya Love Castle 'Kurenai'

Not a lot to say about this one; it's a perfectly normal and lovely Cattleya, but my camera kind of balked at the color.

Cattleya Love Castle 'Kurenai' = Cattleya Psyche (1902) x Cattleya José Dias Castro (Ref.)

One of the things I'm doing during the semi-hiatus, that I didn't have time for previously, is taking Schlumbergera cuttings, for eventual sale.¹ I don't have enough space to get cuttings of every single seedling, I don't know how many cuttings each plant will be able to give, and I'm unsure how many cuttings will actually root, so it's not yet clear exactly which seedlings I'll be selling,² but I'll let you know when we get closer to September.

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¹ Yes, thrips are a problem, but I haven't been seeing them around since the plants stopped blooming. They don't appear to be able to eat the Schlumbergera stems, only petals, pollen, and the skin on fruits. Consequently, I think cuttings are a low risk for transmitting thrips, as long as they sell before they start to bud.
² Though I already have multiples of some 2014-15 plants, so these are pretty safe bets: 012A Sofa Fort, 023A Stoked, 026A Brick Wall, 028A Phil Collen, 054A Helpful Gesture, 055B Fort Venus, and 088A Cyborg Unicorn.

Pretty picture: Cattleya walkeriana

This is your last white orchid until March, because of what happened last time I scheduled white orchids during the winter.

I wasn't watching out for very light pastels, though, and I'm not in control of what the Anthuriums and Schlumbergeras might do, so don't let down your guard. White blooms could still strike at any moment.

I don't have a lot to say about C. walkeriana; the most striking thing about it was that the blooms were pretty big. I guess I like their shape, though, now that I think about it.

Pretty picture: Cattleya Purple Cascade 'Fragrance Princess'

I didn't actually notice any fragrance, despite the name, but then I never do, and even if I did smell something there would be no way to track it to its source, what with all the people and air currents and plants crammed cheek to jowl.

We've seen Purple Cascade before (2013), though possibly not this particular clone of it.

The picture's a lot better this time around, at least partly because I was able to get a lot closer to the plant. I did have to step over the fencing around the display in order to get the photo, but nobody seemed to object, or even to notice.

Cattleya Purple Cascade = Cattleya Interglossa x Cattleya Tokyo Magic (Ref.)

Pretty pictures: Cattleya Crystelle Smith 'Hampshire'

Howdy. I'm still alive, and apparently so are you, so . . . things could be worse.

These photos are not as different from one another as I must have been thinking when I uploaded them, but the color combination is great. Sometimes less is more.

Cattleya Crystelle Smith 'Hampshire' = Cattleya Beaufort x Cattleya loddigesii (Ref.)

Pretty picture: Cattleya Crownfox Sweetheart 'Perfection'

Ennh.

previously (as Laeliocattleya): 2010

Cattleya Crownfox Sweetheart 'Perfection' = Cattleya walkeriana x Cattleya Memoria Robert Strait (Ref.)

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I have stopped oiling the Anthuriums again, not because it wasn't working (it might or might now have been), but because it seems to be upsetting the plants. They're dropping leaves, and new buds have all but stopped. Nothing serious, and it could even be normal (Anthuriums don't change a lot with the seasons, but they're still aware of the seasons), but, but it's enough to make me pause again. Haven't seen any thrips or scale in a while, at least.

I've also gotten involved in a new project, unrelated to plants, which means that posting will remain light for the foreseeable future.

Pretty picture: Cattleya Betty Ford

Some business to get out of the way first: it occurred to me that I could make a PayPal button for the Coffea seed offer. So here that is. I hope it works. (Blogger won't let me test the button in Preview mode.)

[button removed because seeds no longer available]

So far, only two people have e-mailed about the seeds, and that batch has 205, so in theory eighteen more U.S. readers can order seeds before I run out. I'm planning to mail them out on or around 28 February, though if the weather looks like it's going to be exceptionally bad or cold that week I might wait until the following week. (I'll e-mail you first if that's the case.) You should be able to start soaking them as soon as they arrive, and sow them the day after that.

Sorry for not thinking of this sooner, but PayPal won't let me sell things through the donate button (top of the sidebar), so I had kind of overlooked the fact that I could still use PayPal to sell things by making a new button, and didn't realize that was an option until late last night.

Now for the orchid. It was tagged "Rnc. Betty Ford," but as best as I can determine that's now Cattleya Betty Ford.

Cattleya Betty Ford = Cattleya Barbara's Delight x Cattleya Nigrescent

Pretty picture: Cattleya amethystoglossa

Still with the itching. Petroleum jelly is the most effective thing I've tried so far, though 1) it's still not that effective, and 2) it's not entirely comfortable by itself. At this point, my spirit is basically broken, w/r/t the itching, and I don't expect to find an actual fix for the problem.

So, on to the orchid. This is a nice one.

Pretty picture: Cattleya Purple Cascade

This is the most severe example of my inability to get close to certain orchids at the show. I find these flowers really interesting, and I had hoped that I'd get a usable photo of them from far away, but now that I look at this, I'm not sure that I did. I suppose it serves the purpose okay, but I'm not going to be entering it in any photography competitions or anything.

Although it's tagged as Laeliocattleya, officially, it's a plain Cattleya now.

Cattleya Purple Cascade = Cattleya Interglossa x Cattleya Tokyo Magic

I looked for photos of the parents, but there don't seem to be many of Tokyo Magic by itself. (There is another cross involving Tokyo Magic in this year's orchid show pictures, but it, combined with this one, leaves wide open the question of what Tokyo Magic might look like: this one's white with contrasting purple tips; that one's solid orange.

Interglossa pictures are more common, and Purple Cascade looks a lot more like Interglossa, which is also purple and white, in the same pattern.

Top 18 PATSP Posts of 2012

2012 wasn't my, the blog's, or the plant collection's best year. I spent basically the entire year saying that I had too many plants,¹ and trying to reduce the collection to a more manageable size, and somehow managed to gain plants anyway (919 at the beginning of 2012, 1029 at the end). And then the scalepocalypse. And then I started having problems with fungus, a problem which is ongoing.² And then the scale came back.³

Also saying these are the top 18 posts is sort of misleading in two different ways: five of them are basically all the same post, so it's closer to the top 14 posts. Also "top" doesn't really mean anything except that I liked how they turned out and think you should see them if you happened to miss them the first time. They're not necessarily the most-viewed or most-commented or anything like that. Anyway.


18. Pretty picture: Cattleya aclandiae (16 April 2012)


I just liked how the photo turned out, basically.


17. Random plant event: Sansevieria cylindrica (4 September 2012)

Well, it was a big deal. You don't even know.


16. Pretty picture: Phragmipedium Peruflora's Cirila Alca (22 November 2012)


Also just a nice photo.


15. Random plant event: Spathiphyllum (5 December 2012)

In which I propagate a plant I don't even really like, at a time when I'm actually trying to reduce the number of plants I have, because I've realized propagation is possible. I still feel all conflicted about this.


14. Pretty picture: Rhyncholaelia digbyana (30 November 2012)


In which I attempt to liven up a dull blog post with an incomplete screenplay.


13. Random plant event: Aglaonema 'Maria,' with special guest star (8 March 2012)


The debut of the peat-bog-in-the-basement idea.


12. Cribplants, yo. (28 November 2012)

In which my thugged-out ass realizes that Snoop Dogg is a mothafuckin genius.


11. Elsewhere on the Web: Did We Win Already? (29 January 2012)

The sellers of the blue dyed orchids said, about a year ago, that they were going to admit on the tags that their plants wouldn't re-bloom blue. I wonder if that actually happened. Somebody should check.


10. Random plant event: Clivia miniata 'Aztec Gold' (22 August 2012)

The rumors are true: Clivias actually can be induced to bloom. I was beginning to doubt.


9. The Very Slow and Occasionally Sticky Inferno (14 August 2012)

The scale outbreak depressed me. And led to all sorts of incidental badness. Which was also depressing. And is continuing to be depressing. And will likely be depressing in the future as well.


8. Pretty pictures: Masdevallia Sunset Jaguar 'Night Breed' (24 April 2012)


I really love this flower, though I'm unable to read the name without thinking about the "night cheese" joke on 30 Rock.⁴


7. Random plant event: Epiphyllum NOID (26 August 2012)

In which an Epiphyllum blooms in Iowa, and a family is brought together. (No, really.) Also there are many pictures.


2 to 6. Missing From Retail series
(Part 1, 25 November) (Part 2, 2 December) (Part 3, 8 December) (Part 4, 14 December) (Part 5, 20 December)

Sort of a weird choice, I guess, but it was nice to expand the horizons of the blog for a bit and talk about a new group of plants. Plus I learned some things about plants I was otherwise unfamiliar with.


1. The Brick Joke (16 January 2012)

And no, Pierson's Flower Shop and Greenhouses, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, never did contact me in response to the post, so I assume I'm still banned from the store. We never have occasion to go to Cedar Rapids anymore anyway (I'm sorry, Frontier! I miss you!), so this hasn't had much practical effect on my life. However, my initial feelings of well they kind of have a point and I understand why they might not want me there have had a year to . . . curdle.

And so now we have 2013. May I have less fungus and scale, fewer plants overall, and the same number of kidneys, next New Year's Day.⁵

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¹ (Absolutely true, though!)
² The fungus story so far:
First I tried neem oil. That makes leafy Euphorbia and Pedilanthus types defoliate, and doesn't seem to have much lasting effect on the non-leafy stuff.
Then I tried spraying with basic copper sulfate in water, which seemed like the least nasty thing available for fungus control at the ex-job. Not only did that not help much, it clogged the sprayers almost immediately.
Then I asked for help from Cactus Jungle. They said hydrogen peroxide, so I've been doing that, but this doesn't seem to be helping either, especially since I can only do it every 14 days or so. And it makes the Pedilanthus defoliate.
The next thing to try is baking soda. That's not going to work either, but it's another thing I can spray inside the house that won't kill us all, so I'm going to try it anyway.
When baking soda has conclusively failed -- and it will -- only then am I going to allow myself to use an actual hardcore, mid-20th-century-type fungicide. I bought a bottle of chlorothalonil at the ex-job some time ago, then looked it up when I got home and kind of wished I'd bought something else, 'cause I don't want to use it in the house and it's too cold to use it outside.
If the chlorothalonil doesn't fix things -- and it's a polychlorinated benzene ring with two nitrile groups, so it ought to be able to kill everything -- I'm going to go back to the ex-job and buy some captan.
And if captan doesn't work either, I am going to burn the goddamned house down. THE MILDEW WILL NOT WIN.
³ (Truthfully, I'm depressed about all this. Probably going to take a hiatus for a while following today's post. I'd rather not think about plants any more than absolutely necessary right now. Plus, I have a bunch of plants in the basement that I need to dose with imidacloprid granules, and that's going to take some time.)
⁴ It's a throwaway gag where Liz Lemon is home by herself eating cheese. Getting the rights to use the song, even though it wasn't the whole song (or the right lyrics!), apparently cost the 30 Rock producers $40,000. That's some commitment to a joke, that is.
⁵ (For the record, I would also be okay with an increased number of kidneys, at least within reason.)

Pretty pictures: Cattleya aurantiaca

With this one, I'm being less correct than the tags -- this is technically Guarianthe aurantiaca, as the tag said, not Cattleya aurantiaca. (This is mostly because I'm favoring consistency over taxonomic correctness; this plant has appeared at PATSP before, more than once, and it's easier to be wrong again than it would be to go back and correct all the previous references to the plant.)


Still one of my favorites, mostly for the color.

Pretty picture: Cattleya aclandiae

Hmmph. Cattleyas think they're so pretty.

In this case, actually, I can kinda see it. It may be that I only like this one because it's different -- most of the catts and their relatives that I run into are frillier and more monochromatic than this.

Pretty picture: Cattleya Mary Lynn McKenzie

The best I could do for a genealogy here was a site that said Mary Lynn McKenzie is a cross between Cattleya Bob Betts and Cattleya Swan. This isn't especially exciting information to know, and this is the internet so it's always possible that it isn't even true information, but I'm including it in the post anyway because really, the only commentary about this flower I can come up with is that it's awfully white. Which you already know, having seen the picture already.

I also kind of approve of the weird white-daffodil impression it's doing. It amuses me when plants imitate one another.

Rumble Among the Jungle, Matches 1.61-1.64

Rules and Stuff
1) It's probably possible to vote more than once per poll, but please don't. If I believe that someone is voting repeatedly, I will throw out those results, repost the poll, and seriously question that person's priorities.
2) If you want to link to a poll on Twitter / Facebook / your blog / whatever and encourage your friends to come and pump up the support for your favorite plants, you are encouraged to do so.
3) You are also encouraged to leave comments on Rumble posts, if so moved.
4) All photos will enlarge if opened in a separate window/tab.
5) You can choose which plant is "best" according to whatever criteria you decide for yourself. My personal process is a bit convoluted.¹
6) All polls will be open for three days.

Results for matches 1.45 to 1.48:

In match 1.45, Dracaena deremensis cvv. beat Nematanthus cvv., 62 to 44. (The Asparagaceae are having a good first round, in general; I have plans to discuss the results by family, once the first-round results are all in.)
Match 1.46 saw Gardenia jasminoides losing to Schefflera actinophylla / arboricola by 47 to 65, which I predict is going to upset some Gardenia-lovers.

Dracaena deremensis cvv. will next compete on 12 October, when they go up against Schefflera actinophylla and S. arboricola in match 2.23.

Match 1.47 was the one I was most interested in. I knew there are rabid fans of Hedera helix out there, but I wasn't sure how many. I still don't know exactly, but it's not enough of them to achieve victory over the rhizomatous Begonias: Hedera lost, 45 to 64.
Finally, in match 1.48, Sansevieria trifasciata cvv. defeated Lithops cvv., 77 to 46. This is about what I would have expected for most plants going up against Sansevieria, though.

Rhizomatous Begonias face Sansevieria trifasciata cvv. next, in match 2.24, on 12 October.

And now, the FINAL SET of first-round votes:

Match 1.61
Vriesea splendens (flaming sword) vs. Hippeastrum cvv. (amaryllis)

(All are Vriesea splendens, probably the cv. 'Splenreit.')

L-R: Hippeastrum NOID, Hippeastrum NOID (probably 'Apple Blossom?'), Hippeastrum NOID.
Left picture donated by Tigerdawn. Right picture is from Arpingstone, via Wikimedia Commons.





Match 1.62
Agave spp. vs. Cattleya alliance orchids

Clockwise from top left: Agave victoriae-reginae, A. americana medio-picta alba, NOID (maybe A. desmettiana?), A. marmorata.

Clockwise from top left: Cattleya aurantiaca, Potinara Eye Candy 'Sweet Sensation,' Sophrolaeliocattleya Hazel Boyd 'Debbie,' Potinara Eye Candy 'Mellow Yellow.'





Match 1.63
Opuntia spp./cvv. (prickly pear cactus) vs. Codiaeum variegatum cvv. (croton)

Various unidentified Opuntia spp.; the top left and bottom right plants might be O. microdasys. Center bottom plant might be too, but a different variety.

Clockwise from left: Codiaeum variegatum 'Petra,' 'Picasso's Paintbrush,' 'Revolutions,' 'Mrs. Iceton.'





Match 1.64
Calathea spp./cvv. vs. Radermachera sinica (china doll)

Clockwise from top left: Calathea ornata, C. roseo-picta 'Medallion' (?), C. makoyana, C. insignis, C. zebrina.

(Both Radermachera sinica.)





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¹ I'm deciding according to a hypothetical situation in which all of my houseplants are gone, as are all the other houseplants of the world, except for one producer/supplier/retailer. Said person is offering to restock me with one or the other of the plants in question but refuses to give me both. Which one would I choose?

Pretty picture: Cattleya aurantiaca

Another unruffled Cattleya. Even less ruffled than the last one, in fact.


Somewhat scrambling for time again today, so I'll just point you to this page for more information on the species. Officially, the name has been changed to Guarianthe aurantiaca, but if you want to pretend that you didn't read that, I wouldn't blame you.


Developing an Orchid Collection with Backbulbs has a page on C. aurantiaca as well.

Pretty pictures: Pinkish Red

Pressed for time again -- we were elsewhere for a good chunk of yesterday.

Most of these were taken at the ex-job; the rose was at Lowe's.

Dianthus NOID. I should know what the variety is: it's the same thing we sold during the two springs I worked there. I just forgot, and there's no time to try to look for the ID.

Lamprocapnos x 'King of Hearts.' I regret not getting a clearer photo of the foliage on this one; it seemed different. Not that I'm hugely familiar with bleeding-heart foliage.

NOID Cattleya alliance orchid.

Paeonia 'Hoki.' ('Tis the season.)

Cyclamen persicum NOID. If anybody still remembers my Cyclamen experiment from last fall: it looked worse, and worse, and worse, and worse, and then I moved it to the (cool, humid) basement under shop lights, and it's doing massively better. Among other things, it's growing HUGE leaves. Which I guess is good. I was getting sick of it and considering throwing it out, so it's shaping up just in time, pretty much.

Rosa 'Radtko' (doubled knock-out rose). I'm sure there are roses out there that I could find interesting and exciting, but I haven't run into them at Lowe's. Not that I expected to. I'm just saying.

Dianthus NOID. Dianthus were one of my favorites to sell, at the ex-job; they smelled nice, and I enjoyed deadheading them. I'm not currently growing any, and probably won't in the near future, because we're still working on establishing a raised bed in the backyard, and even if we had a bed already I maybe still wouldn't grow any because I don't know if I'd want to, but they were nice, occupationally speaking.

Pretty picture: Cattleya Confetti x C. aurantiaca

Again from the orchid show last March, and again with a Cattleya. They really are terribly photogenic, and y'all know I have a thing for orange flowers.

I'm feeling kinda down on orchids lately: the Oncidium I bought last December had been doing better than any other orchid I've ever owned, until about three weeks ago, and then it started throwing leaves everywhere and won't stop. The Potinaras and Sophrolaeliocattleya aren't throwing leaves, but they're not growing, either. This is how pretty much all my orchid purchases go, as far back as I've been trying to grow orchids. I'm getting sick of it. Either I'm going to have to find better spots for them to live -- which will be difficult, since space is extremely limited, and the best spots are already occupied by more appreciative plants -- or PATSP is about to have a Summer Orchid Giveaway.

Pretty picture: Laeliocattleya Fire Dance 'Patricia'

I really like this one. Possibly it's the color. Most of the photos from Google show flowers that are more orange and less red than this, but it wouldn't be the first time a particular orchid specimen was different from the way the variety normally looks, due to differences in care or whatever. And the lighting was, as I've noted before, bad that day.

I had this identified as Rhynchosophrocattleya Firedance 'Patricia' originally, and that's still what the file name says, but looking around for information on it, I got hits for Lc. Fire Dance 'Patricia' instead. A lot of the orchids at the show were mislabeled in subtle ways (letters transposed, things spelled as two words instead of one or vice-versa, obsolete names), so this is presumably an example of that, but I don't know which name is wrong in this case. Doesn't really matter, though. It's a pretty flower. Makes me happy to look at it. That's good enough.

Pretty picture: Cattleya aurantiaca

Not at all what I think of when I think of Cattleya (in fact, some of what I think about when I think about Cattleya are probably not even Cattleyas, at least not pure ones), but it's not uncharming. I still prefer the color of the cross with Lc. Rojo, but as they say, I wouldn't kick this one out of bed for eating crackers.

Though in point of fact, I would kick anybody out of bed for eating crackers, 'cause, dammit, it's a bed. If you have to eat something, you could at least make it something that's not going to splinter into a million pieces and get all ground into the sheets and stuff. If somebody's insisting on eating crackers on a piece of furniture which is clearly not designed with cracker-consumption in mind, and doesn't see how that's a problem, then I don't think we're likely to have that long of a relationship anyway. And who eats crackers as a snack anyway, crackers by themselves? I mean, I do, sometimes, but that's mostly because they require no preparation at all and I'm very, very lazy when it comes to food. But I assume that other people don't sit down with a sleeve of Saltines and start chowing down. And I certainly don't eat just crackers, in bed, with someone I don't know well enough to have had the crackers-in-bed conversation with.

So no. I'd have to be like, um, _________, you're going to have to leave the bed for a little while if you want to eat crackers. And then when you're finished eating the crackers, you should come back and we should maybe have a talk about foods which are and are not appropriate to eat in bed, and maybe we should also talk about exactly where you see this relationship going if you're not going to be respectful of my desire to not be rolled in cracker crumbs against my will.

In any case, I do approve of the flower.