New Earth Orchids

DECEMBER PLANT OF THE MONTH!

Stenorhynchus speciosum This is the great "Christmas" orchid. The immature inflorescence is sheaved in red bracts the eventually reveal the tubular red flowers with a light pink lip. The flower spikes are emerging now and will continue to grow and open their flowers which will last through the holidays. Very easy to grow!
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The pictures are of my cross RM-1006 Blc. Digby Lane. This was a cross of Lc. Atalanta Lane 'Green Ice' HCC/AOS X B. digbyana 'Mrs. Chase' AM/AOS. The pod parent is a proven homozygous alba form. B. digbyana 'Mrs. Chase' AM/AOS was proported to be an alba form. However, this cross shows it is heterozygous for the alba allele. This is evident by the fact half of the progeny are alba forms. Consistent with a back cross of a plant heterozygous for the alba allele with another homozygous for the alba allele. This cross also shows B. digbyana fma. alba is in the same alba group as C. warscewiczii, tigrina, leopoldi, bicolor and aclandiae. Finally, to reiterate, B. digbyana 'Mrs. Chase' AM/AOS is heterozygous for the alba allele.

Some 50 years ago, I saw a Peristeria elata. It was an impressive plant with these beautiful extraordinary flowers. I looked for them but could never find one I could afford then, About 4 years ago, I was able to buy a block of seedlings. This year I finally had one big enough to bloom! The inflorescence is nearly 5 feet tall and grows straight up without any need to stake it. If you look closely at the inside of the flower, you can see the “dove”. Hence the name the Dove Orchid. It is also known as the Holy Ghost orchid. Perisyeria elata is native to Central America and is the national flower of Panama.

My plant pictured here is not yet full size…just a first bloom seedling. I don’t think it qualifies for a windowsill orchid!

Twenty years ago on July 4th, we gathered my two sons and Cyndi's two daughters and their families to celebrate our wedding. Our friends Rory Jones and Marc Hachidourian created Cyndi's wedding bouquet and put together a beautiful arrangement of flowering orchids. One of the plants was Prosthechea Green Hornet. Fast forward 7 years when we presented the plant to the Rocky Mountain Judging Center. It was awarded an AM/AOS of 85 points! We named it Prosthechea Green Hornet 'Wedding Day' AM/AOS! For 20 years it has reliably bloomed every year to remind us of our wedding and how lucky we were to meet and marry.

The pictured are of Prosthechea Green Hornet 'Wedding Day' AM/AOS.

Here are two first bloom seedlings from my cross RM-1904 Pot. Orange Sands (Apricot Sands 'Outstanding' AM/AOS X Blc. Orange Butter 'Melinda'). Pictures are labeled with the names.

Peter T. Lin recently released a grex of Sc. Beaufort made with 4N (tetraploid) parents. NEO has bloomed 6 of these so far. These are pictured here along with a 4N plant derived from thhe cloning of Sc. Beaufort 'Hartford's Elmwood' AM/AOS.
We have begun to breed with these new 4N forms. They appear to breed easily as pod or pollen parent. The first of these crosses will be going to the lab shortly.

It has been awhile since I last posted. Seems life got in the way of my sharing my results of using Pot. Shaw Yuan Gold 'O-2' AM/AOS. The cross shown here is RM-1110 Pot. Ellibirdieve (Haw Yuan Gold 'O-2' FCC/AOS X Shinfong Little Love 'Little Goldfish')
Parents are not pictured here.

This the largest unifoliate Cattleya I have bred. This is Pot. Shining Gold ‘Super Moon’. The plant is 69 cm tall from the top of the medium with a leaf width of 12 cm. It is largest plant from my remake of this cross.