Vanda Patricia Lowe 'Jerni'

[mauraec]

Question for you, Connie: I have a small V. lilacina. I think it's going to survive, though still looking a little traumatized. Is it what is considered semi-terete? Also it's very small and doesn't show any sign of past spikes. It grows in a basket hanging in the brightest (indirect) southern light I have here - indoors, now that the temps in Atlanta are going from hot to freezing and back every few days. I could put it in direct sun -through the window- if that would encourage blooming - what do you suggest? Do you know this species or have one? I haven't run across it much in my research travels.

[Dorsetman]

V.lilacina is a small flowered species ( strap-leaved) . Semi-terete refers to hybrids made between any strap-leaved Vanda and any terete leaved vanda.
The only terete leaved Vanda species I can actually think of is V.teres - which has been moved to another genus containing other terete leaved orchids - terete means leaves like knitting needles - namely papilionanthe . However hybrids are still registered as if it were still a Vanda.

[Dorsetman]

Maybe they aren't popular for sale in that they get so big and bushy with the roots??

I don't think they get any bigger and bushier than strap-leaved, or am I wrong ? As I have said, we don't get any actual experience with them here !
But in this connection I will mention that I just ( last night) as part of my continueing study of vandaceous orchids generally, read an account of V.Miss Joaquim ( teres x hookeriana) when it was first shown to the RHS only four years after it was first seen by the world in Singapore ( 1893). The shown plant was seven feet tall, with a spike of 12 flowers and buds ( four open). But 7 feet tall - over 2 metres...it won a FCC btw.

[catttan]

Connie is right about a separate section just for Josephine van Brero in some of our previous shows. Most JVB crosses are peach/salmon coloured with a very distinctive JVB lip. Some newer JVB crosses with the excellent strap-leaved vandas/ascocendas from Thailand have shown other colours in shades of pink, 'blue', purple. Semi-teretes are real sun lovers and revel in being exposed to full sun in our tropical climate and reward growers with flower spikes from almost every leaf axil. BTW it is Patricia Low ( JVB x V Jennie Hashimoto).

@ Geoff : If anyone can grow this well in Europe then it has to be you! You are right - it is not more massive than a strap-leaved vanda - but it does grow faster.

[Cjcorner]

I have seen pictures of the terete vanda growing in bunches overseas...like a bush! I have a habit of looking up "orchids on trees"...or orchid tree and the name of a country like Vietnam. Then I hit the tab for pictures and find a website with a bunch of orchid pictures in their native habitat. Some of the pictures just make your jaw drop. Usually I do my picture searches when I have to do a "sitting/resting" for a week or so. When I'm very bored I start doing my searches. You'd be suprised how much you can learn in an afternoon of searching online. When I came across the pictures of the terete vanda I immediately began looking for one to buy. The picture was of someone's yard...think big...and every ten feet or so there was a bunch growing like a bush and about 7 to 10 feet tall! I like big orchids.

[Jose R. Nieves]

Thanks...I almost tripped a lady in my effort to get to the vandas that day. lol I thought it was a Josephine cross, and now that it's doing so well I don't care that it probably isn't. I am going to keep an eye out for this groups' sales. Their vandas were very nice.

Vanda Patricia Low (no e) = V. Josephine Van Brero x Vanda Jennie Hashimoto
Jose

[mauraec]

V.lilacina is a small flowered species ( strap-leaved) . Semi-terete refers to hybrids made between any strap-leaved Vanda and any terete leaved vanda.
The only terete leaved Vanda species I can actually think of is V.teres - which has been moved to another genus containing other terete leaved orchids - terete means leaves like knitting needles - namely papilionanthe . However hybrids are still registered as if it were still a Vanda.

Thanks, Geoff -I'm wondering whether I really do have a v. lilacina, then, because it has narrow, almost circular leaves that have a small v-shaped groove shallowly cut into them and that grow all over the place, rather than the usual vanda leaves I've seen. Then again, maybe it's just small and messy....



Connie - so sorry to seem to have hijacked your thread - I'll shut up, promise.

[Cjcorner]

Thanks, Geoff -I'm wondering whether I really do have a v. lilacina, then, because it has narrow, almost circular leaves that have a small v-shaped groove shallowly cut into them and that grow all over the place, rather than the usual vanda leaves I've seen. Then again, maybe it's just small and messy....



Connie - so sorry to seem to have hijacked your thread - I'll shut up, promise.

I don't mind at all...i'd be wondering myself. Wrong tags upset me more than no tag.

[Dorsetman]

quote<Thanks, Geoff -I'm wondering whether I really do have a v. lilacina>
It is many moons since I had one, but yes, messy, leaves all over the place , sounds exactly right , looks right too.
Strap-leaved is a relative term !

[mauraec]

It is many moons since I had one, but yes, messy, leaves all over the place , sounds exactly right , looks right too.
Strap-leaved is a relative term !

Gotcha. Thanks.