In Bloom Again: Paph moquettianum

[prem]

this is a child of two AM awarded plants, 'A World of Orchids' AM/AOS and 'Ervin Lee' AM/AOS, the first flower on this plant had an impressive natural spread of over five inches. Now on its fifth flower (for those who don't know, these bloom sequentially--each flower lasts about three weeks; then it takes about two weeks for the newest bud to grow to maturity), the size has diminished to right around 4 inches across.

semi-front-lit shot:



back-lit shot:


Enjoy!

---Prem

[Heather]

Nice pic, Prem. Thanks for posting. Still a bit too hairy for my taste! lol.

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Hey Prem! Nice bloom & Photos! Questions: Do the blooms always get smaller the longer it stays in bloom? How many blooms will the spike put out before it stops? Thanks for sharing all of your beautiful photos and plants!

Cheers!
Brutal_Dreamer

[LJA]

What can I say? That's a gorgeous bloom and the photos are, as usual, stunning. It's still sometimes hard for me to believe that these things actually exist in real life. Just like some of the corals I used to grow when i was doing reeftanks, these flowers look like they've been designed by someone tripping on LSD. Seriously!

[prem]

Dreamer,
the flowers do tend to diminish in size over time on any of the multifloral paphs...even those that open all their flowers at once. I have heard that paphs related to moquettianum (such as primulinum, etc.) tend to flower for long periods of time...stories of spikes going on for two years are not uncommon. ..given an average of a flower every month or so, that could be around 20 flowers by that time.

---Prem

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Wow. Thanks!

Cheers!
Brutal_Dreamer

[L I Jane]

Very nice Prem! What's the family count now? 8?

[prem]

Jane, we're at 10, going on 11.

---Prem