Paph malipoensis
I'm not 100% convinced the flower is fully open - it is so slow ; but of course when it is open, it lasts, and lasts, and eventually I get bored with it, and cut it off , or to put things another way, I cut it off, so that the new growth will start growing... keeping the flower out takes a lot of energy it seems and only a big clump ( which alas, I don't have with this species) , can do both things together. This plant, in flower, once did 6 different shows over a 10 week period, and was judged best in class in the last of them. ( I don't normally do that many shows, especially now I am getting to be ancient, but there were special circs when I did ) - I was putting on a group - maybe 10 x 6 feet , notionally from my (then) orchid society which was struggling to keep afloat. Alas it sank... too many good growers dying on us, the remainder having silly arguments and staying away when they sulked. Orchid growers are a difficult lot of ***** ( fill in the word you choose) I think.
Present company excepted, of course.
pic of the complete plant icluding a mile of stem follows in the next post, now that I have resized.
No more to say, is there, about this species which everyone knows ?
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