Phal Bellina, Violacea, or Both?

[mauraec]

Again - the usual warning that these photos don't do justice to the really deep magenta with strong blue overtones that the real blooms have.



I'm serious about the controversy on this plant. The nursery insisted it was a violacea, but it is more shaped - leaves, etc - like a bellina (which used to be a var. of P. violacea), and now I've read about the crossing of bellina and violacea, which yields Phal Samara, I believe. It smells heavenly of floral-citrus.

I included a photo of my P. violacea var. coerulea to show the difference in leaf shapes. Phillip is going to post his P. bellina soon, so you can see the contrast in the purple/magenta and its "bleeding" more onto my mystery plant's petals.

I'm counting on y'all to clear this up!







The P. violacea var. coerulea. Not in bloom right now, but has 2 spikes and a bud coming along nicely.


By the way, I read that these phals like bright light - as in 1500-2000 footcandles. I'm not sure what to think of that - it's pretty bright for a phal.

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Oh Maura, these orchid blooms are beautiful!!

cheers,
BD

[catttan]

These are outstanding violacea/bellina, Maura. There is so much inbreeding and crossbreeding between these two that it would be extremely difficult to ID unless we do a chromosone count. BTW great photos.

[mauraec]

These are outstanding violacea/bellina, Maura. There is so much inbreeding and crossbreeding between these two that it would be extremely difficult to ID unless we do a chromosone count. BTW great photos.

Thank you so much, Yew! Any compliment from you absolutely makes my day. The photos, of course, are the result of my trusty D80. I'm still photo-editing in iPhoto; I have Aperture and am determined to learn it, but it's really challenging me and I haven't had any good results with it yet. I still find that my best photos need little or no editing, anyway.

[catttan]

Thank you so much, Yew! Any compliment from you absolutely makes my day. The photos, of course, are the result of my trusty D80. I'm still photo-editing in iPhoto; I have Aperture and am determined to learn it, but it's really challenging me and I haven't had any good results with it yet. I still find that my best photos need little or no editing, anyway.

Thanks Maura. I'm also just starting Aperture and find it a lot of fun. Like you I was very intimidated at first (par for a techno-challenged 74 year old) but recently plucked up enough courage to try and now shoot everything in RAW and do a little editing in Aperture. Now it seems less intimidating and is actually quite intuitive. And you have Phillip to help/guide you.

[mauraec]

Thanks Maura. I'm also just starting Aperture and find it a lot of fun. Like you I was very intimidated at first (par for a techno-challenged 74 year old) but recently plucked up enough courage to try and now shoot everything in RAW and do a little editing in Aperture. Now it seems less intimidating and is actually quite intuitive. And you have Phillip to help/guide you.

I just found this on an earlier thread: http://www.rv-orchidworks.com/orchid...bellina-2.html. It's a fascinating thread, and underscores the confusion between bellina and violaceas.

Anyway - Phillip just attended an Aperture seminar tonight, and we both have individual sessions on it this Saturday. The G11 shoots in both jpeg and raw, so I'm pretty thrilled I'll be able to use it with Aperture.

It'll be a big day when one of us posts the first Aperture-edited photo - I'm betting on you!

[catttan]

How I envy you and Phillip being able to attend the seminar on Aperture, I wish we had something like that here or even someone who is familiar with Aperture to help me. All I have are the tutorials from Aperture which I have a hard time trying to understand.

The pictures of Den bullenianum that I posted recently have been sharpened in Aperture.

[mauraec]

Aha! I knew those photos were awesome! You must be getting it down pretty well. Once Phillip and I get down the basics, we'll be able to ask you what to do!

[tucker85]

Beautiful phalaenopsis! The photographs are excellent. Did you use some studio lights or is that just a flash?

[mauraec]

Beautiful phalaenopsis! The photographs are excellent. Did you use some studio lights or is that just a flash?

I used a flash with some minimum available light (my Nikon D80) - I hate using a flash usuallu, but it was a necessary evil on this one. It was very late in the day.