Cattleya walkeriana

[Arne]

First blooms on a plant that I bought one year ago. It is a division of plant collected in the jungle several decades ago supposedly.

[tibs480]

Just lovely!

[Arne]

Just lovely!

Thanks Tina.

[Dorsetman]

Walkeriana seems to have amazing flowers for such a small plant. I have accumulated several examples in my collection but none have flowered yet. Eagerly awaited after seeing this.

[Orching]

I have found that Walkeriana will flower as long as two conditions are meet. One, a lot of light[

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Walkeriana can take more sun than nobilior. The second condition is a lot of humidity. They love media that holds a lot of water like coco coir. Acclandiae behaves the same. To avoid much trauma, wait until new root are coming out for the transfer. The old roots will rot away, but the new set of root will be more than sufficient to keep the plant alive and fatten all the pseudo bulbs.

---------- Post Merged on December 13th, 2018 at 12:27 AM ----------

[QUOTE=Arne;460655]Both my wife and I are quite surprised as well with this one. I have coerulea and alba forms of walkeriana so I wanted the naturally occurring type in nature in my collection as well. As it turns out, I find the flowers of the natural type the best of the three.

There are at least two very distinct types of Walkerianas based on the size of the plant. In one group you will find Gifu, Tokatsu, Divina, Carmela, Monte Azul and many other popular cultivars. The pseudo bulbs in this group are small and the flowers are small too compared to the flower from the other group. The second group that includes Majorie, Maria Isabel Olivers, and Strela da colina and other expensive cultivars has flowers and pseudobulbs much bigger than the first group. This two groups can be distinct populations, or genetic variations. The plant in your picture definitively belongs in the second group. And, I do not think it has to do anything from being a "wild" plant. Most likely those big plants are polyploids.

[Arne]

There are at least two very distinct types of Walkerianas based on the size of the plant. In one group you will find Gifu, Tokatsu, Divina, Carmela, Monte Azul and many other popular cultivars. The pseudo bulbs in this group are small and the flowers are small too compared to the flower from the other group. The second group that includes Majorie, Maria Isabel Olivers, and Strela da colina and other expensive cultivars has flowers and pseudobulbs much bigger than the first group. This two groups can be distinct populations, or genetic variations. The plant in your picture definitively belongs in the second group. And, I do not think it has to do anything from being a "wild" plant. Most likely those big plants are polyploids.

I also noticed that the pseudobulbs a more elongated and larger than those of my other two plants of walkeriana. Other than that I just felt that it was nice that the shape and especially color of the naturally occurring type was so good compared to the line bred cultivars that I'm used to seeing. The extent by which polyploidism occurs in walkeriana in the wild I don't know. Having said that, the size of these flowers is actually smaller by 1 - 2 cm compared to both my coerulea and alba walkeriana. So if this wild-collected plant is tetraploid, the effect is reflected in its vegetative growth, not in the size of its flowers.

And yes they need a lot of light. I have my walkeriana plants outdoors in summer exposed to full sun in the morning until noon.

[Keysguy]

beautiful. I picked up a small plant a couple of months ago. Can't wait!

[Arne]

Walkeriana seems to have amazing flowers for such a small plant. I have accumulated several examples in my collection but none have flowered yet. Eagerly awaited after seeing this.

Both my wife and I are quite surprised as well with this one. I have coerulea and alba forms of walkeriana so I wanted the naturally occurring type in nature in my collection as well. As it turns out, I find the flowers of the natural type the best of the three.

beautiful. I picked up a small plant a couple of months ago. Can't wait!

Thanks. Give it a lot of light.

[Sheryl]

Very pretty!

[Arne]

Very pretty!

Thanks Sheryl.