orchid ID requested

[ritjen]

Hi, I am a new member...have introduced myself yesterday...short clip...I work at a university and have control of the greenhouse which is home to a bequeathed collection of orchids...

the collection is OLD...so think of that when you are thinking ID...nothing has come into this collection since probably the 70's...

the plant in question I have never seen flower in the 5 years that I have worked here...so BRAVO..we are doing something right. It has very stiff leaves. They are living in a southern facing greenhouse with shading in the summer. ( we are in Upstate NY, so our climate is not steamy in the summer)

misting in the greenhouse occurs 2x a day...they are watered on an automatic watering system 2x a day for 10 minutes. these orchids are in bark.

I have pics of the whole plant, the flower with a ruler and a close-up of the flower..as you can see from the full plant pic, we have quite a few flowers coming yet. I have two of these and they are both in spike.

[Teena]

First, welcome. It's a beauty, I'll leave the i.d. up to the experts. Second, is your greenhouse ever open to the public?

martha

[ritjen]

It could be....we are actually trying to get our associated retirement housing affiliated with the greenhouse....I can arrange tours....although we are pretty meager at this point...

Jenny

[wuness]

I suspect your plant is Brassocattleya (=Brassanthe) Maikai. I have the clone 'Mayumi' and your plant looks very similar. My plants bloom around Christmas and they always remind me of peppermint.

wuness

[Jose R. Nieves]

Brassanthe (aka Brassocattleya) Maikai = Brassavola nodosa x Guarianthe bowringiana
Cross was made in1944 by Hirose

[123orchids]

it looks like a Brassavola hybrid to me. I have one like that but mine is pink.

[ritjen]

thank you all ! I was thinking it was a Brassavola....but couldn't get any farther....found a similar one in the "Orchid Seasons" book....wonderful ! what a quick response all..

thank you very much !

Jenny

[Cjcorner]

I agree with the Maikai naming from above. I have several varieties and it is an older cross. I see you got one nice big plant. Mine was like that and it's now in three pieces. I'm waiting for them to bloom soon...your flowers are very lovely. Very nice spotting...

[ritjen]

Connie, I do have two of these....the second is a little smaller.( but also with spikes)..but since we have limited space, we are trying to grow them into more of a "display" plant...the former caretaker of the greenhouse just chopped them up ----every year----need it or not----so they are getting a chance to recover now.....I have some gigantic Cattleya trainei (sp?) that just finished blooming...some had 4 blooms and three spikes per plant ! it was great !

[Jose R. Nieves]

Connie, I do have two of these....the second is a little smaller.( but also with spikes)..but since we have limited space, we are trying to grow them into more of a "display" plant...the former caretaker of the greenhouse just chopped them up ----every year----need it or not----so they are getting a chance to recover now.....I have some gigantic Cattleya trainei (sp?) that just finished blooming...some had 4 blooms and three spikes per plant ! it was great !

Sorry! I forgot to tell you. This is a common plant here and you can see it growing
in almost every garden. They love to be mounted or in open baskets and they grow to huge size so plan ahead. Unfortunately they don't open all blooms at the same time. You are doing a great job. It;s a pity you don't have a pic of the C. trianae!
Jose