My First Orchid Conference

I went to my first orchid conference a couple weeks ago.  It was at the Great Lakes Judging Center in Ann Arbor, MI.  I was fortunate enough to go with my good friend, and my orchid enabler, Linda.  The coolest thing about the conference was that most of the presentations were well above what I know so there was a lot of learning to sponge up.  Most of the presentations were geared towards accredited American Orchid Society judges who already have years, if not decades, of growing experience and who already know what most of the orchid species already look like.  I was approached by 3 different people who thought I should go through the program and get accredited.  Hmmm, a 6 year commitment and gone at least once a month to judge an orchid show ... would be pretty cool, but it'll have to wait until Kai is older.

So the topics of the conference were "Cymbidiums and Pleuthallids."  My previous blog post showcases one of these:  Pleurothallis tribuloides.  Pleuthallids can be generally classified as really small plants and usually small, unusual-looking flowers; hence the reason I like them.  :)  Cymbidiums are probably on the other end of the spectrum.   Usually really large plants with lots of beautiful flowers.  The flowers are commonly used in corsages, as well.  Here is a nice one grown by one of the speakers at the conference.

There were two speakers who traveled from California and both were absolutely phenomenal! The first of them to speak was Joe Parker who is president of The Pleurothallid Alliance and he spoke on a species of orchids called "Dracula."  I found out that Dracula orchids were not named for the vampire Dracula, but rather is name that means "little dragon."  Joe grows Dracula orchids exclusively in his greenhouse and said one of the reasons for his talk was to persuade others to start growing them as well. Well, he picked up a recruit with me.  If you look at the Wikipedia link I posted above and look for the "frog's skin" dracula photo on that page, that is the one that came home with me.

The second California speaker was George Hatfield of Hatfield Orchids who grows and hybridizes Cymbidiums exclusively.  He is responsible for tons of the Cymbidiums we see in cultivation now.  I'm going to gush here a little bit, but this man is seriously an incredible asset to the orchid community as a whole.  I was in awe of what he brought to his presentations and also on his philosophy on growing and judging orchids.  Even though I was probably the only person in that room that he didn't know, he still stopped and took 15 minutes to talk to me and help me pick out a Cymbidium to grow.

Another really interesting presentation was given by Mario Ferrusi and he talked about judging Masdevallia orchids.  He offered up the single most important thing that I took from the conference.  It is probably something I've always known, but never really put in to practice.  When you water your orchids spend at least 15 seconds with the hose at each and every plant.  He said the two most beneficial things that come from it is that, aside from giving them a really good drink of water, is that you flush away any salts that have accumulated within the potting media, say from fertilizers, and also that you bring a lot of oxygenated water to the roots when you spray it through the potting media.  Since orchids are epiphytic in nature, and require air and moisture to their roots, this satisfies both needs.  Good stuff.

So, for the only bad thing about the trip, and this doesn't have anything to do with the conference, but rather the lodging we had.  We stayed at the Red Roof Inn and were incredibly lucky that Linda reserved rooms months ago.  The same weekend as the conference was the same weekend of a big Nascar race at the Michigan International Speedway.  We talked the the lady checking us in and she said that hotels were booked up from Jackson to Detroit and down in to Ohio.  I forget how many tens of thousands of people she said go to the race, but it was obscene.   Anyway, probably 99% of the people staying there were there for the race, and the group that was staying in the room next to me were so excited that they partied until 5:00am that morning.  Ugh.  So I was working off of 2 hours of sleep the next day which made for a long drive back.

So except for the one glitch I had an absolute blast at the conference.  I hope next year is as interesting as this one and hopefully I can go again.

Pleurothallis tribuloides (Sw.) Lindl.

This is going to be my first post in a section where I post as much information as I can about the orchids I have as they come in to bloom. Most of this information will be from researching online resources and books that I have, but will also contain my own personal experience with the flowers. Hopefully you will think they are cool, too, and if you grow it as well, maybe it'll help you flower yours better.

Background:

It was first discovered in Jamaica by the Swedish botanist, Olof Swartz, and registered in 1788. Swartz made a trip to Jamaica and Haiti in 1783 where he amassed a collection of over 6,000 plants, one of which was Pleurothallis tribuloides. It was originally classified as Epidendrum tribuloides, but was later reclassified in to Pleurothallis by John Lindley in 1830. Swartz is considered the first orchid taxonomist.

Pl. tribuloides can be found throughout Latin America and the Caribbean and grows natively in dense, wet forests. It's common name is the "thorny pleurothallis" which refers to it's seed pod which looks like a small cocklebur to me.

Flowers:

The flowers are bright orange and are about 1/4" long; about the size of a pencil eraser. To me, they resemble a lobster claw. It typically blooms in late summer and the flowers have no fragrance.

Plant:

It is very compact with leaves only getting to about 2" long and growing tightly together. As with most pleuros, this one has a single leaf with no discernible pseudobulb.

Growing:

Likes cool to warm temperatures (58-75 nighttime temps). It does well in sphagnum moss and prefers low light, or heavy shade, as given by a north window. Remember: low light does not mean little light. These are still plants and require light throughout the daytime hours.

How I Grow It:

Mine grows in a small terrarium potted in sphagnum moss in a north window. It is currently in a 2" plastic pot, but I will probably mount it to the cork slab within the terrarium once it finishes blooming.

Why I Like It:

First off, this was one of the first orchids that I ever bought. It lived for about a year before I killed it. Just recently found it again and bought it for the fond memories of the grower who sold it to me. Secondly, cool lobster claw flowers? How can you not like something with flowers as unusual as that?

References:

http://www.orchidspecies.com/pleurtribularoides.htm

http://edoc.hu-berlin.de/dissertationen/stenzel-hagen-2004-02-06/HTML/chapter3.html

http://www.tropicos.org/Name/23503914

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olof_Peter_Swartz

What Makes an Orchid an Orchid … Part 3 (Petals & Lip)

Now for what I think is probably what most people find the most interesting aspect of an orchid: it's flower. Before you say, ... "uh, duh!" let me start off by saying that there are people out there who grow orchids for their foliage, not many people, mind you, but there are some. I actually met one lady at the Chicagoland Orchid Festival who told me that she actually thought the flowers were boring and that she usually just cuts them off. I couldn't help but to gasp. :)

An orchid flower is made up of 3 sepals and 3 petals, of which, one of these petals is modified to look different and it is called the labellum. We'll get in to more stuff about the labellum later. The pattern for their layout, as you go around, is: sepal, petal, sepal, petal, ... For some silly reason, I relate this to how my grade school teacher would sit us down according to boy, girl, boy, girl. Here is a photo to show their layout:

As you can see, the one that is at the top, the one that is pointing "north", is a sepal and then they alternate as you go around. When you get to the bottom, or the one pointing "south", you get to the labellum. This one is still considered a petal even though it looks different than the other petals.

Although it's a little hard to tell in this photo, each set of sepals will have the same general characteristics (shape, length, coloring) and each set of petals will as well. The sepals of this orchid have a nice slender oval shape to them, and the petals are a little wider and have a little ruffle to their edges. You can also see this pattern if you look at the flowers in the OrchidGeek logo.

Okay, now that we got "petals and sepals" under our belt, let's talk about the labellum. The labellum is commonly called "the lip" of an orchid. For me, personally, I think it looks more like a "tongue" than it does a lip. :) This lip will vary in quite a few different ways depending on which orchid you are looking at. Most orchid's lip will be larger and flashier than any of the other petals. There is one orchid that comes to mind where the opposite is true. Orchids of the genus Masdevalia have very long and showy petals and sepals, but have a diminutive lip, one which is hardly visible unless you get really close to the flower.

If you look up labellum in a latin dictionary you will find that it's meaning is "a basin or small tub" which I think can be considered pretty accurate. If you look that the center of the flower above, where the labellum begins to fold over, you will see what I like to call on Cattleya orchids "the nose" but is commonly known as the "column." This is where the reproductive parts (the stigmatic surface, the anther cap, and the pollina) are kept. If an orchid produces nectar, this is often where it is stored. Also, a fragrant orchid produces it's fragrance from modified structures within here. So there are a lot of things happening in this "basin."

Now for the thing that causes a lot of arguments between orchid growers: what is the purpose of the labellum? Well, I've heard two different hypothesis on to why it is different from the other petals. First is that it provides a platform for the pollinator to rest upon as it either gathers or deposits the pollen of the flower. The second is that the labellum looks different so as to provide something that is visually different in the flower structure and this difference is what "catches the eye" of the pollinator who is then attracted to the flower. I think both of these are applicable, as can be seen in the photo below:

As you can see in this orchid, named Gerberara 'Snow Ballet', the lip is large enough and is even held at an angle where an insect could sit, but is also visually different enough to attract an insect, and in this one's case, even give it directions as to where the pollen is.

One last point about the labellum. On almost 99% of all orchids that you will see, the labellum is stationary; it does not move. However, in one genus of orchids, this is not the case, in fact, it is the characteristic that defines the genus. Orchids of the genus Bulbophyllum have a labellum that is hinged where it connects to the flower. These orchid's lips seem to float and flutter when the wind, or your breath, blows over them. Now for a funny story about these types of lips:

This hinged lip provides movement which attracts pollinators but also provides a "practical joke" for the orchid at the insect's expense. The hinging is not at the end of the lip, nor is it in the center, but it is near the 1/3rd mark so that most of the lip hangs over. When the insect lands on the long end of the lip, the part farthest away from the prize, it needs to walk along this balance beam toward the pollen. Once the insect passes the hinge the weight of the insect flips it towards the column to where it lands back-first. Since the column contains the pollen, and the insect is now laying against it, the pollen is now stuck to the back of the insect. The insect then regains it's composure and flies away to another Bulbophyllum and falls for the same joke but instead deposits the pollen on the column resulting in pollination. Whoever said God does not have a sense of humor hasn't seen this happen. :)

What Makes an Orchid an Orchid … Part 2 (Bi-lateral Symmetry)

Now, continuing on with the Orchids101 section, we come to "bi-lateral symmetry." The easiest way that I can describe bi-lateral symmetry is first to talk about symmetry and then add bi-lateral to it and then show how it applies to orchids.

First, symmetry is taking a shape or object and drawing a straight line through it's center. If both halves are equal it is said to be symmetric. I'm sure there is a more mathematic way of describing symmetry, but this is an orchid blog not a math blog. :) A crude example would be:

Now to add bi-lateral to the mix. There are two common types of sym

metry when talking about flowers: bi-lateral (which we'll talk about in a second) and radial symmetry. I would say radial symmetry is probably the type of symmetry we would think of most when looking at flowers in general. Radial symmetry is symmetry where flower structures will be symmetric when drawing a line from it's center. In this example, a daisy, each petal is symmetric to itself when a line is drawn through it. It has a very well defined center in which the petals "radiate" out from:

Bi-lateral symmetry is when the line can be drawn through the flower in only one way to create a symmetrical image. In Michigan we have natively growing lady slipper orchids (Cypripedium) that I will use for the next example:

As you can see, above, there is only one possible option for line to be drawn to make both sides symmetrical. In this case, it happens to be straight up-and-down which is the most common way in orchids.

I would like to note that orchids are not the only flower that are bi-lateral symmetric so it is not safe to say that all bi-laterally symmetric flowers are orchids. Another example would be the flowers of a pea.

I've had a few discussions where people try to say that Cirrhopetalum orchids are not bi-latteraly symmetric:

The thing to point out is that what looks like one flower is actually multiple flowers connecting at the same point. If you then look at each individual flower you will see the symmetry.

I know a lot of that was pretty dry material, but I'll try to liven it up for the next topic.

What Makes an Orchid an Orchid … Part 1 (Fun Facts)

Here is the scenario that first made me take the plunge in to growing orchids: I was walking through one of the local "big box stores", in the middle of winter, and stumbled across a display of a few orchids for sale. At the time I hardly knew they were even orchids and if it weren't for the sign on the display I probably wouldn't have known for sure. Maybe it was my need to see something green in the midst of white, and long, Michigan winter; maybe it was the subliminal thought of wanting to grow orchids when I was a child finally manifesting itself; or maybe it was just the pretty flowers; either way I walked out of there with my first orchid: a Phalaenopsis, or Moth Orchid.

Now I would like to just share some facts about the orchid family before we dive in to what actually distinguishes them from other flowering plants. It should also be noted that I'm one of those people who likes to make analogies between things so we may do a few fun exercises involving that, too.

First, there are approximately 880 orchid genera today. For those of you who may already own a few orchids, the genus name is "phalaenopsis" or "cattleya" or "paphiopedilum". It's also the first part of the name when you look at an orchid's tag from it's pot. For example, Oncidium Sharry Baby has a genus name of Oncidium. For me, 880 genera is kind of hard to envision so lets do a little "thought experiment."

Let's say that the average person watches 4 hours of television a day and, let's say, in those 4 hours the average person watches 1 movie. If we relate 1 movie to 1 orchid genus, then it would take 880 days, or almost 2 1/2 years, to "watch" every orchid genus.

Secondly, there are between 22,000 and 25,000 orchid species within this 880 genera. The species name is also the second part of the orchid's name when you look at it's tag. Some examples would be "Vanda coerulea" and "Paphiopedilum sanderianum." If we use our movie analogy again, it would take between 60 and 68 years to watch all the species!

Thirdly, although it's hard to know exactly, but it's guessed that there are over 100,000 orchid hybrids. There are three types of hybrids:

1. Primary Hybrids - these are hybrids where both parents are orchids species. i.e. Paphiopedilum Magic Lantern is a cross between Paphiopedilum micranthum and Paphiopedilum delenatii.
2. Complex Hybrids - these are hybrids where one, if not both, parents are hybrids.
3. Intergeneric Hybrids - these are hybrids where the parents are from different genera. i.e. Laeliocattleya Exoniensis is a cross between Cattleya mossiae and Laelia crispa.

If we use our movie analogy again, it would take almost 274 years to watch all the hybrids or we would have to watch 4 movies a day for 68 years to watch all the hybrids.

The last fun fact I'd like to end with is that orchids grow natively on every continent except Antarctica. Almost every country has at least on native orchid, and if you live in the United States, every state has native orchids. I live in Michigan and we have 56 species of orchids. For a list of our orchids you can see it off of the Northwestern Michigan Orchid Society website. It should also be noted that orchids are generally a protected species so if you are thinking about transplanting one, contact your local extension offices to find out the proper way to move them, if you can move them at all, that is.

So hopefully this has peaked your curiosity about orchids. Stay tuned for more Orchids-101.

Okay, Let's Get This Started ... Really

It's funny how time gets away from you. With all my good intentions of posting to this blog on a regular basis, my life with a new baby has taken precedence. Now that we are starting to get in to a routine, and time is freeing up some, it's time to starting making good on my original intention.

So here we go!

The Plan For the Next Few Posts

I would like to start off this blog with some basic information about growing orchids; kind of an Orchids-101 feel. A lot of the information I will putting here will be from the Orchids 101 lecture that I have been giving at our annual orchid show, except that I will be putting them here in more organized blocks.

So, if you are a new orchid grower, or hope to be one, stick around; there will be new information up soon!