OK, first the long story. Today I finally finished painting the walls of our condo, all three levels....including the 13 ft ceilings in the living room and the stairway leading to the master bedroom (and wasn't it fun up on the ladder, NOT). So as a reward I allowed myself to go 'play' at my favorite nursery. I had no intention what so ever to buy anything, I simply wanted to get out and look at pretty flowers and plants. And I almost got out of there with my credit card intact..................ALMOST. (Let me add that my hubby told me I to bring a couple new friends home, if I wanted to. Funny because he's the one threatening to take a machete to all the plants in the house so he can get in the front door ;-)

My intentions flew out the window about 10 minutes after arriving, when I saw a HUGE Iron Cross begonia. Amazingly it had my name written across the pot !!!!! I'd been wanting one of these for years, but they were always so small that it wasn't worth the money.

Ok, maybe 1 friend can come home with me with a new pot.

On the way back to the ceramic pot area (yes, this nursery is so large that they have different areas IN the nursery for all the various types of planters) I had to go past the out of bloom clearance orchid rack. Did I forget to mention that this place sells 6" out of bloom phals for $2 - $3 each, 8" for $5 ?!?!?! The 4" orchids that are out of bloom are usually clearanced for $1 or LESS !!!!! Ok, so Mtssa. Shelob 'Tolkien' and P. Mount Lip joined the begonia in my cart. Time to pick out orchid pots, which means going past the IN BLOOM phals. And that's when I saw this not quite 'right' looking beauty



The tag insert reads P. Chingruey Beauty x Dtps. Mount Lip. It has 2 spikes and hopefully I was right when I thought it was a peloric form of 2 other phals on the table. All 3 had the same coloring and the same tags, but this is the only one that looks this way.

Was I right? Is it a peloric form? Not that it will matter in the least. This gem is staying with me no matter what.