Aerides odorata

[Dorsetman]

I have several examples of this species in my collection, but this is only the second plant I have seen with erect flower spike - the other being an A.o.alba I have ( which was once considered to be a different species I find ; I had assumed that the upright nature was part of the difference , but since I now have a pink one, the type rather than the alba variant, doing the same, I am obviously off track with that idea.
The flowers of this species are not the largest in the genus by a long chalk - only about an inch across , but it is a nice species for all that.
This plant has two "branches" - side growths- and a third maybe just starting but none of these is up to flowering yet.

About 60 or more buds and flowers . I think this is good - at any rate it is for UK with our decidedly non-tropical climate ( it is minus 2 Cenrrigade in the garden this morning, and the sun has largely been absent for a week or more )

When I looked at the pictures - of course seeing the flowers quite magnified on my screen I was surprised to see the damage to the lip on the biggest of the close-up ; it looks as though a few of the buds were browsed by a slug or snail before they opened.( Fortunately, it is not easily seen on the actual plant ) I am continually amazed at this sort of damage happening to a plant hanging up in the greenhouse, suspended by a thin wire hanger from another wire running the length of the greenhouse, when the leaves, pot and spike are well clear of all other vegetation and clear of the glass. The slugs or snails must be able to move along the wire - or as a friend says, abseil down from the glass like storm troopers relieving a siege...my mind boggles !

[Roy]

That is one magnificent Aerides Geoff. By the flower shape and lip, its very much like an Aer. quinquevulnera ( purpureum style ). I've not seen one go straight up though. If nothing else, I won't one.

[zainal abidin]

I agree with Roy, there are 2 keikis at the bottom of mother plant Roy take one I want one Geoff. He.he.he..

[Dorsetman]

I have the ordinary quinquevulnerum , a couple of plants, and I agree the flower shape is similar if not the same, and of course the colouring - pink splashes on the 5 tepals plus one one the lip - I always say it ought to be called sexa vulnerum ( my latin is not good enough to get that quite right - but six "wounds" not five.

Maybe this is as you suggest a form of quinquevulnerum ; I wish it were easier to name plants precisely . About the easiest way here in UK is to put a plant up to the RHS Orchid Committee , which includes several of the people from Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, Orchid Herbarium dept - like Philip Cribb & Jeffrey Wood. If a plant gets accepted for an award ( maybe BC here ) they take the spike away and then come back and say what the correct name is after boiling up their herbarium specimens. But putting a plant up for award in UK is not a user-friendly experience - I have to get the plant to the right place in London for 8.30 am (catch the milk train at 4.30 am...) and it cost me best part of £100 sterling in train fares, taxi fares ,and my lunch at London prices ; I wouldn't want to carry the plant on the bus from Waterloo station etc.at present, , Come to think of it, since it is pretty cold everywhere in UK in this unusually vicious early cold snap ( global warming anyone ? Minus 15 C and a motorway full of cars trapped, people in cars for 18 hours before being rescued - alright, that was between Glasgow and Edinburgh - but still UK ) I don't want to take the plant any further than my Orchid Society Xmas lunch in a nice warm hotel 3 miles away....

[catttan]

Fantastic blooms! Have never seen one with erect spikes!!!

[Dorsetman]

Once more I have been looking at Jay's encyclopaedia, and he says pendant for both quinquevulverum and odorata - and incidentally some botanoists at one time consdiered q to be a variety of odorata rather than a separate specie,- and whatever view you take ( and how can we pretend to know better than taxonomists who may have quite a lot of herbarium specimens to compare ) the two certainly have rather similar flowers.