My Thai orchid tour, part 5 ( three posts to show 12 pics)

[Dorsetman]

First, Den lituiflorum. This was the only sighting of this species, at the start of the trek up the hill, this was probably the lowest altitude we started from- maybe 1000m. I have only the alba form of this in my collection but that is a wunderkind - flowers for months on end. So this type form has long been on my wish list. Maybe I'll find it one day !
The fourth pic here is of a single teak leaf - to show you just how big they are, and what a light blanketing effect they have when the tree is in full leaf. So - the clue here , is grow dark to produce the new growths, then rest very bright ( = after teak leaf fall) to get the flowers.
More pics follow immediately as the next post in this thread

ps, yes, there are lituiflorum in the first pic - you just need bionic eyes to see them !

[JDT]

Keep them coming Geoff, I am enjoying every one of them and the descriptions!

[Dorsetman]

The orchids visible here are D.pulchellum - one of the biggest plants seen, and polyanthum - ditto - note that apart5 from the ones seen most clearly there is a second longer set hanging on the other side of the branch.
I have included a pic of a shield fern - stags head fern - have forgotten the proper name for this ; I observed that in 99% of the cases where there was one or more of these ferns on a tree, there were also orchids. Both need the same microrhizza perhaps ?
In some cases the orchids were growing on the ferns, too, but not always.
So it became easy to spot the orchid trees - look for the fermns with their very distinctive profiel.

[Dorsetman]

The first two pics are of D.lindleyi -which was called aggregatum variety jenkinsinii when I started orchid growing 55 years ago. The bulbs are quite distinct - and you can see how shrivelled they are here. I don't think they actually plump out completely when the rains come, but do go some way towards that. This was perhaps the commonest dendrobe we saw on the entire tour - maybe we saw thousands of plants - certainly hundreds. Personally I could go on looking at them all day - such a warm lovely splash of colour.
A third pic here is to show the terrain - very rough rock, often host to lots of epiphytes including orchids. Hard work when it had to be scrambled over, in an afternoon temperature getting up to 37 ˚C on one day , and not a lot less on any day..
And finally in this set, my first cymbidium species on this tour ( I don't count a C. lowianum which had gone over and provided a good meal for something or other - never did see lowianum in good flower this time, although I have 'often' seen it in the past. I say often, but cymbidiums were much rarer than dendrobes , with one exception which I will come to later in this series.
This cym is ( of course) bicolor. Flower maybe 3 cm across, perhaps a little larger but certainly not more than 3.5cm. A good spike could be 25 or even 35 flowers, and gently arching. Very stiff leaves - you don't want to poke one in your eye if you grow one of these. Best plant had 24 spikes at different stages on a clump a metre across - a sight to remember for ever....
Having seen 3 different cym species ( plus lowianum) on this tour - the others are still to come - I will happily swap most of my hybrids for some of these things. Such character . But I'll leave you to decide after seeing further pics, another night.

[JDT]

You must have had a fantastic trip!

[Chris in Hamilton]

I think I will be putting my Den. through a much more severe drying next winter after seeing your pictures Geoff! Great education

[78Terp]

Great stuff! What a wonderful trip!

I am hoping my Cym bicolor will spike this year. It finally has 4 fans which I understand makes it mature enough to bloom. It always hangs and is still at the babysitters..

[Sheryl]

Lovely pics Geoff and I agree with Chris that my lindleyii will need a dryer resting period next year.

[catttan]

Great pictures Geoff! Thanks for posting

[Arne]

First, Den lituiflorum. This was the only sighting of this species, at the start of the trek up the hill, this was probably the lowest altitude we started from- maybe 1000m. I have only the alba form of this in my collection but that is a wunderkind - flowers for months on end. So this type form has long been on my wish list. Maybe I'll find it one day !
The fourth pic here is of a single teak leaf - to show you just how big they are, and what a light blanketing effect they have when the tree is in full leaf. So - the clue here , is grow dark to produce the new growths, then rest very bright ( = after teak leaf fall) to get the flowers.
More pics follow immediately as the next post in this thread

ps, yes, there are lituiflorum in the first pic - you just need bionic eyes to see them !

That teak leaf makes a good lesson. You can give many of those different species within Dendrobium the dry and cold winter rest you heard of, but if they don't get the light, forget the flowers.

---------- Post Merged at 11:02 PM ----------

I think I will be putting my Den. through a much more severe drying next winter after seeing your pictures Geoff! Great education

Yes Chris, I didn't give my lindleyi one single drop of water from the middle of November until the end of February. I try to give it high enough humidity but, as I mentioned earlier, I don't have the possibility to give it the low temperature regimen that it needs during winter. The dry conditions together with a few (4-5) nights below 50 seemed to do the trick. I know that someone in the AOS once said that for these orchids to bloom to their full potential you need to make the difference between the growing and resting period as large as possible, which doesn't necessarily translate to difference in water regimen or temperature; it is all about the overall change between growing and resting.