Pretty picture: Lycaste Dainty

Here's another Lycaste (previously: Lycaste Alan Salzman). It has no colors in common with the previous Lycaste, and I'm not really seeing a similarity in shape either, but I suppose I can still believe that the two are related. It'd hardly be the first time that an orchid did something that didn't make sense to me.

It helps that the International Orchid Register has heard of it, and believes it to be a hybrid of Lycaste candida x Lycaste campbellii. (Ref.)

Pretty pictures: Cattleytonia Sister Toby x Cattleya Memoria Robert Strait

Kinda ennh about this one. Points for being . . . vivid, I guess.

Pretty picture: Dendrobium lindleyi

This is Dendrobium aggregatum according to the tag at the show, but D. lindleyi was correct as of last March, according to Plant List.

Previously (D. lindleyi var. majus): 2013

Pretty picture: Vanda Pakchong Blue

We've seen this variety before, pretty consistently from year to year, even (2010, 2011, and maybe 2012), which makes me wonder if it's not just the same plant coming back over and over.

I mean, the only other explanation that would make sense would be that maybe there are just a lot of them out there. But I've only ever seen one per year at the show. So it's probably the same plant over and over.

Vanda Pakchong Blue = Vanda Doctor Anek x Vanda coerulea (Ref.)

Other news: I'll have two more Schlumbergera-bloom posts eventually (021 and 083, and you will definitely want to see 083: it's the best Schlumbergera seedling to date) for sure, and possibly several more (008, 012?, 019, 023, 027, 028, 030, 031, 061, 078, 084, 088) if buds don't drop first.

Anthurium #334 "Jean Poole" is developing nicely but has still not opened yet.

The other three new Anthurium buds (#132 "Eve Stropper," #241 "Megan Gigaterra," and #259 "Tasha Salad") are all still doing okay, but are so far from being ready to open that I'm trying not to get too excited. There's a first-ever bud on #594 ("Charity Case") as well. (Light to medium pink so far: nothing too exciting.)

First-generation berries: Anthurium 'Joli' (medium-sized, lavender to hot pink to orange-red) has in fact been pollinated. Still can't tell about 'Florida.' (huge, orange) Should have seeds to sow from 'Midori' (large, green) just any day now, as well as six spadices' worth of seeds from 'Pandola.' (large, pink)

Second-generation berries: nothing much on the horizon at the moment save for #203 "Anna Mae Hemensouz" (medium, dark red) and #231 "Rhea Listick" (medium, purple-pink). #234 "Ross Koz" (medium, purple-pink) has some berries forming but it seems like I've been waiting on them forever; ditto for #245 "Sawyer Ad" (medium-large, red) and #276 "Zach Religious" (medium-large, pink/red). I'm getting ready to move another set of seedlings into 3-inch pots soon, to make more room to start seeds, so expect the plant census to make another big jump. I could well wind up with 2000 by the end of 2015, if this sort of thing keeps up.

Pretty pictures: Paphiopedilum gratrixianum

For some reason, I have this one marked as the third of my four favorite orchids from this year's show.¹ I still like it, and I guess the photos came out well enough, but I don't think I'd rate it quite as highly if I were doing the top 4 list over again. I like the colors a lot; not sure how I feel about the shape.

Paphiopedilum gratrixianum is found "from Laos to Vietnam," according to Wikipedia.

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¹ The first was Laeliocattleya Natrisiri, or whatever it's called, which was posted in August, and the second was Cattlianthe Mary Elizabeth Bohn, which we saw in September. You'll have to wait until March 2 to see the fourth one.)

Anthurium news

As promised, here is the first bloom from Anthurium seedling 040 ("Ivy Winters"):

(on November 27)

(on December 17)
It's not amazing, I know, but it actually is slightly special, in that usually the pink-blooming plants have matching spathes and spadices, and this one doesn't. Which is something. I'm a little surprised that it's pink at all, actually: the seed parent was the ambiguously orangish-pink 'Orange Hot,' and the first buds (the ones that later aborted) started out pink and turn a bit coral as they aged. I figured that meant that Ivy was going to wind up coral or orange, but it looks more like 'Gemini' (red-pink with a white spadix) than anything else, and the current bud is the same red-pink:

Ivy also has unusually long, narrow leaves. Not record-setting or anything, but it does stand out a little.

The second generation of seedlings is solidly underway, and even accelerating, now.¹ Some of the earliest second-generation seedlings are big enough to look like actual little plants already.

#690 "Sister Kitty Catalyst"
seed parent: #239 "Russ Teanale"
sow date: 25 August 2014 (4 months old)

#721 "Chandelier Divine Brown"
seed parent: #005 "Chad Michaels"
sow date: 25 August 2014 (4 months old)

#682 "Tallulah Bunkbed"
seed parent: #271 "Wanda Reulthemal"
sow date: 21 July 2014 (5 months old)

#644 "Tammie Brown"
seed parent: #276 "Zach Religious"
sow date: 15 May 2014 (7 months old)

#649 "Layona Davenport" (warning: Katy Perry music at link²)
seed parent: #276 "Zach Religious"
sow date: 15 May 2014 (7 months old)
And of course there are berries developing all over the house, and seeds germinating in containers, and so forth. 'Midori,' the green-blooming plant I bought in July, has in fact been pollinated once, for sure, has produced a second bloom (maybe pollinated, maybe not), and looks to be fairly close to having mature berries, which is especially exciting. I have maybe, maybe, finally also pollinated 'Florida' (the huge orange-bloomer), 'Krypton,' which has small red-purple blooms, and 'Joli,' which has complicated blooms that shade from purple to hot pink to red-orange as the plant ages. Time will tell. I've been technically successful once before with 'Krypton,' but not with the other two, and 'Krypton' has produced only a handful of fairly weak seedlings so I'm not sure it's the best plant to be breeding with in the first place.

(But it's pretty.)
Finally, there have been four new first-time buds since the last report. The furthest along is #334 "Jean Poole," which is the Anthurium seedling I'm most excited about lately -- the bud color isn't anything new,³ but the foliage is great. Dark, dark green, with brown new leaves, plus the leaves are gigantic⁴ and slightly wavy along their edges, something I've only seen on 'Red Hot' (slightly wavy) and the NOID red-purple (very wavy), so I'm guessing that one of those is the pollen parent.⁵ It's also growing nicely upright so far, without any need for stakes or other supports: a lot of the seedlings only grow upright when very young, and then flop over, which is obnoxious.

That's a 6-inch / 15 cm pot, by the way.

I've also seen first buds on 132 "Eve Stropper,"

241 "Megan Gigaterra,"

and 259 "Tasha Salad."

The first two of those look like they're probably going to be pretty ordinary pink or light pink spathes, but Tasha has a slight purple tinge that makes me think she may end up like 231 "Rhea Listick" or 035 "Alyssa Edwards". Both Rhea and Alyssa are favorites of mine, so that's at least a little exciting.

Also finally some new buds on several of the older seedlings, finally, after a long period without many blooms, so I suspect we'll be seeing more first-time buds in the next couple months. Why did all the plants stop blooming? We do not know. Why did they start blooming again? It is a mystery.⁶ I'm just happy to think that things might get moving again. I don't know what I would have done without the Schlumbergera seedlings.

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¹ Which is actually sort of a problem: fairly soon, I'm going to have to stop germinating every seed I get, and stop potting up every germinated seedling I get, just because I don't have room to grow them all out. I knew this day would come eventually, of course, but for some reason had convinced myself that it was still in the distant future.
² Yes, that deserves a warning. (As if I would let you stumble unwittingly into a Katy Perry medley!)
³ Sort of a red / dark red, along the lines of #149 "Heather Boah," #002 "Alexis Mateo," #203 "Anna Mae Hemensouz," and #005 "Chad Michaels." It's nice, and I like it, but it's nothing new on its own.
⁴ Similar in size to #234 "Ross Koz," though a bit longer and narrower. The biggest leaf I could find to measure was 8 inches (20 cm) long and 4.75 inches (12 cm) wide. It doesn't really compare to 'Midori' or 'Florida' -- the biggest 'Florida' leaf I think I've seen so far is 14 x 8.25 inches (36 x 21 cm), which is also the house record for the A. andreanum hybrids -- but Jean is damned respectable all the same.
⁵ Probably the NOID red-purple. It's been a looooooong time since 'Red Hot' bloomed for me.
⁶ No, really, it kind of is. They've never done this before. And it can't be a natural seasonal thing either, because the plants upstairs in the living room kept on blooming steadily throughout the summer and fall. Best guess? They didn't like the "white oil," too many of them were busy working on berries to put any effort into new flowers, they were so crowded that many of them weren't getting adequate light to bloom, or some combination of the three.

Pretty pictures: Phalaenopsis OX Prince 'OX1480'

Not terribly excited about this particular Phalaenopsis, though a lot of that is because it's hard to get me excited about any Phalaenopsis.

Phalaenopsis OX Prince 'OX1480' = Phalaenopsis OX Black Jack x Phalaenopsis Leopard Prince (Ref.)

In other news:

There will be at least one more Schlumbergera seedling to talk about; #083 has a bloom that is almost but not quite opened as of the 16th, and at least so far looks like the sort of plant I would buy if I saw it in a store. (Would you believe magenta / orange, for a color combination? I'm not sure that it works, exactly, but I can't say I've ever seen it before.)

I also have buds on a number of others,¹ though there's always the possibility that those will drop before developing -- a lot of the first batch of seedlings (057 "Pyrotechnic," 024 "Bryce Canyon," 054 "Helpful Gesture," and so on) just dropped a bunch of buds on me, possibly because they got too dry, and don't appear inclined to make any more. But I'm pretty sure 083, at least, is going to finish building its flower in time for me to take a photo, and I'm interested in what y'all will make of it.

There will also be Anthurium posts soon. 040 "Ivy Winters" has finally gotten it together to produce a bloom (and followed that immediately with a second bud, which is kind of impressive even if the bloom itself isn't), and I've seen first-time buds on another four seedlings.² This is after a few months of nothing at all happening,³ so I'm relieved.

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¹ (008 "Frightened Dog," 012, 021, 023, 027, 028, 031, 056, 061, 079, 084)
² Namely:
132 "Eve Stropper" (light pink?)
241 "Megan Gigaterra" (white / cream right now, which probably means light pink eventually)
259 "Tasha Salad" (purplish pink?)
334 "Jean Poole" (red or dark red, with fantastic foliage)
³ Well. Lots of up-potting (including the first group of seedlings to advance to 6-inch / 15 cm pots), and lots of seed-starting. But that was all me: the plants weren't doing anything much, and hadn't been since June or July. Lazy freeloading bastards.

Schlumbergera seedling no. 055

By this point, I imagine some of you are approaching Schlumbergera saturation, if not already past it. How many more interchangeably orange flowers is he going to expect us to look at, you might be thinking.

Well.

I up-potted eight seedlings on 30 September,¹ every one of which has now produced at least one bloom, which blooms you have already seen. Time from repotting to an open bloom ranged from 5 to 8 weeks.

On 29 October, I up-potted another four seedlings,² two of which³ had started to produce buds within a month. So presumably there will be -- barring some kind of bud-drop disaster -- another two posts about those flowers, and maybe eventually four posts. Not sure.

Then on 23 November, I up-potted 24 seedlings.⁴ After a week,⁵ I've seen no buds on any of those yet, but I expect to see at least a few eventually.

So my best guess is, you'll see a couple more at some point this month, and then a new round could start popping up in early January. But there'll be a number of days without Schlumbergera photos soon.

As far as seedling 055 specifically is concerned, not a lot to say. It's fine. Orange. Shape could maybe be better, but we'll see. TinEye gave me lots of photos of autumn leaf piles and a surprising number of pumpkins. I hesitate to name a leafless plant "Leaf Pile,"⁶ so no. 055 is hereby called "Pumpkin Festival."

Might have a new Anthurium bloom or two for you to look at shortly, by the way. Don't get excited: it's not that great. But still, how long's it been, right?

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¹ Those being:
022 "Sad Tomato"
024 "Bryce Canyon" / "Safety Vest"
026 "Brick Wall"
054 "Helpful Gesture"
055 "Pumpkin Festival"
057 "Pyrotechnic"
060 "Wet Dog"
064 "Rose Hoses"
² (Numbers 021, 079, 083, and 099)
³ (021 and 083)
⁴ (I am writing this on 30 November.)
⁵ (008, 010, 012, 019, 023, 027, 028, 030, 031, 033, 034, 056, 061, 066, 073, 078, 084, 088, 091, 103, 104, 107, 111, 112 -- of these, 008 "Frightened Dog," 012, and 088 have all bloomed or attempted to bloom in the past, and 012 was even pretty when it did so.)
⁶ The "leaves" on Schlumbergera are in fact flattened, segmented stems.