Paph niveum , the snow-white beauty

[Dorsetman]

I have been putting off taking a snap here until I had the maximum number of flowers open, but as you will see there is still a bud or so to come, but the oldest flower is going off. So I had to do it now. And in any case, it looks as though it is mistimed for my Society show in almost 3 weeks - which is a pity , I think it might have won something or other. But it won;t be wasted, since I understand that we are putting on a small display - half a dozen plants somewhere, any day soon, as part of the publicity for the show, and I have promised this one.

However I have another similar plant with four spikes, no flowers out yet , which should be OK if not at its best for the show - and they ain't having that one....

As I have said before and expect to say again, brachys are not easy in Uk. Someone asked me why ? The answer, I have only just thought of , is that if we knew that, maybe there would be no difficulty anyway !

Whatever - this is the end product of maybe 10 or 12 years of sweat and toil ( not literally, of course) - and a lucky result, it is in fact the best flowering I have seen - usually it has been ( latterly) three spikes and the other growths not quite big enough to flower, and then missing out for the year.

[Janet]

Very nice! Are the leaves really that dark of a green? They're almost blue-green, at least on my screen.

Janet

[Dorsetman]

I think the photography is exaggerating things a little bit - it is difficult with white flowers, they are so easily shown just as white shapes, without any details; and by the time I have got the details in, the leaves are shown a little darker than in real life.

But having said that, I can't think of any other orchid in my collection with such dark, blue-green leaves. Now I think about it, I'll try and take a pic of the leaves, getting them correct, without worrying about the flowers, and upload that, maybe tomorrow.

[rapidan]

Wow that's an awesome plant, great growing!

[Janet]

I went back and looked at the picture I took of my white paph and saw a dark blue-green leaf also. And I saw very prominently displayed a nasty scale on another leaf! I remember taking photos of some yellow iris and doing the auto-correct in photoshop and having the leaves turn blue, not blue-green, but clearly blue. Not enough of an expert to know why this happens. My photo was a bit blurred, probably because I was trying to position the flower in one hand while I held the camera in the other. Great plant you have there!

[espranch]

Beautiful paph flowers/plant, Geoff. Betty :-)

[Rudy]

We're lucky there's always the forum on which you can show your beauties.
And beauties they are!!

[catttan]

Fantastic.My hat off to you, Geoff for growing such a beautiful niveum into an awesome specimen. I can't even grow mine into half as good as yours, and I'm living right in the midst of the niveum country! Pity though this can't make it to the show - it surely would have won something ... like best specimen plant of the show(?). Hope you have better luck with the other plant.

[delphiguy]

Beautiful blooms and a very healthy plant. Pity that it missed the show tho.

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Geoff - great growing. That is an amazing orchid! I love these slipper blooms. Beautiful.

Cheers,
BD