Como Orchid Show

With so many of our friends in the Orchid Society of Minnesota it is only fitting that we get to see a few shots of some of the spectacular things that were on display at the Como Conservatory this past weekend for the St. Paul's Winter Carnival events!

Between the clubs, we have MANY Orchid Society members! I wish I knew of all of the club member's entries so we could have shown off how awesome they were. Unfortunately, I don't know who had which specific entries.

 So... I will show off a few photos and hopefully they will contain the right plants!

The first five photos show some of the plants that were on the main Orchid Society's table. It was a long and extensive table!

 SG, PK, and JV had plants in this display I believe, and if I'm missing any other members, I'm really sorry!

 How about these???

 An interesting hybrid that is considered to be the "most black" of the black orchids.

 Here Mans' Farms had a cool display! What lovely blooms!

And finally... just because I thought this was both cool and funny ... I got a photo of our TV set when Channel 4 had a piece the Como show and about Jerry Fischer and the Peruvian orchid that is so huge and only recently discovered. They've been growing out small ones for the past few years and are now ready to sell young plants.

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Beyond Awesome, Medellin Columbia Wild Kohleria

 I just about can't get any more excited by a travel photograph sent to me personally!

Look at what you can find if you walk around a few miles outside of the city of Medellin, Columbia part way up the Andes mountains!

Apparently there are all sorts of things that look similar to this and even come in pink. I'm not perfectly sure that this IS a Kohleria, but from extensive conversations about things like this, I'm pretty sure it is.

It's got soft leaves with "fuzz" and you can see the "hariy" flowers for yourself. It's got five petals and you can see the calyx to the left side has five "divisions". I wish I could maginify the photo just a little more to see what the stamen look like.

Pretty cool, eh?

Club Project Streptocarpus 'Noreen' update 3

Sue sent in this shot of 'Noreen' which is looking good! It was a small plant when she received it and look now.... getting larger leaves and blooming well.

I'm curious to know if conditions in each person's growing environment will alter the color of the blooms slightly. All of the plants acquired from Neil's Streps. were propagated originally from only one "mother leaf", so they should be pretty identical. I've noticed that some show off the yellow as more "yellow". It will be interesting to compare more club member's pictures as this project grows on.

Check out the wide range of lovely Strep offerings that Neil's Streps hybridizes. Got to eBay and type Streptocarpus in the search box!

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Sinningia sp. 'Rio das Pedras' ????

This little lovely thing is growing in a deli-tray prop box with supposedly three sorts of Seemannia starting in it.

Notice the dime in the background for size comparison.

 It started out so cute and colorful, and I didn't really know what to expect a starter Seemannia to look like, so I was pleasantly surprised it looked like "this".... Then it sent up the flowers.

 Unless I'm missing something, Seemannia don't look like this....

I'm pretty sure now it's a Sinningia sp. 'Rio das Pedras' and I'm pretty excited to find it here.

This is a S. 'White Sprite' and the plants sure have some similarities but I'm still wondering how precisely the tuber got into a rhizome starter box?

Walter probably had something to do with it.

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Streptocarpus 'Neil's Getcha', Aeschynanthus humilis, Petrocosmen barbata, Episcia 'Pink Brocade' and other great stuff!

 Janice has some pretty exciting things to look at when she goes down to her plant room.

This is a lovely selection called Streptocarpus 'Neil's Gotcha'. Really striking flowers with ruffles and spots and a nice bold color.

 Here's another lovely strep with just the right contrast between the leaves and the color of the blossoms.

 This little Aeschynanthus humilis has been blooming for about four months. It seems to do well under lights and with a mat watering system for it.

Another pretty Strep with big bright flowers.

 If purple is more your color there are some of them too!

 This was a really eye catching bloom. Again, huge flowers and nicely contrasting leaves.

 These little cute things are a Petrocosmea. They're Petrocosmea barbata.They stay quite small and as you can see have a center that is somewhat compact. The plants go through a cycle when just the tight center is left in the pot looking a bit like a pine cone. When conditions again are favorable (or the plant decides it's time) they send out the rest of the lovely lush leaves to make the small but rather dramatic rosettes which you see here.

This is one of the very pink Episcias. I think it's 'Pink Brocade'. What a beautifully grown and striking plant. I hope that Janice turns her back next time I'm lucky enough to see her collection and perhaps this one, tiny, small (well, large) bowl will mysteriously vanish off of the shelf!!!

Thank you very much to Janice for sharing the pictures with us! Comments??? Congratulations???

Streptocarpus 'Noreen' Project Plant Update 2

This is J O's project plant and the photograph doesn't do the plant justice. This, as you can see from the regulation tray it's sitting on is getting to be wonderfully large and long. It threw out quite a few blooms and it going to have two more bloom stems open soon.


The next three pix are of my plants. This is the one plant from the first update. it's out of bloom now but it's definitely filled in with more leaves and it's looking a pretty healthy shade of green although before I repotted it, it got quite dry in it's smaller sized pot and lost a couple of it's baby leaves.

 You might be able to spot it as the second plant on the left hand side. It's sister plant is the front one and it's in bloom as well. I'm mostly posting about just the specific plant I chose to follow through the photos, but curiously enough I was interested in what another of the 'Noreen' plants was doing.

This is a third (separate) 'Noreen' that I got about three weeks before I got the project plants. I crossed 'Guidelines x Emily' long ago (I think) and 'Noreen' is one of the seedlings. Neil's Streps (which you can find on eBay) was growing out some of the plants and agreed to supply the club with the "project plant babies" we started with. Neil's Streps also was a vendor at the AVSM Northtown Fall Show and Sale and this is the plant I acquired earlier in the month. Just those three extra weeks, or the fact that I repotted rather soon after acquiring it might have made the difference but this plant is (judging by the tray size again) getting HUGE!

I'm curious about a couple of things regarding this particular plant. I generally don't have a ton of success with my streps. They frequently are left to get too dry and my growing room is sometimes a bit on the warmish side (especially in summer). As we all know, Streps frequently seem to hate warm conditions. This is a plant that does happen to do well for me. Is it because I'm trying harder and paying more attention to it because it's one of my hybrids? Or because I don't want to be the first to kill off my project plant, with photo evidence and documentation of the crime, so that the club finds out what really happens to some of my plants.... or....

Or, is it because this is one of the seedlings that actually survived in MY conditions and therefore is somewhat adapted to dryer and more harsh conditions than some other hybrids? I'm wondering if there is a way to find out?

Aeschynanthus radicans, Getting a Closer look at the Lipstick Plant: Or, Why Science is Fun!

 Just to start us out... here is a flower from the Aeschynanthus radicans.

Usually most people know this plant as a "Lipstick Plant" because the bloom comes up from the blackish base (calyx) and emerges like a lady's lipstick.

This is the first cut. From here I'll make another cut that's about 1/16th of an inch thick to put under the scope.

 *Not all the photos are all that sharp and clear, this is the best I can do with the equipment I possess.

You can see the brown calyx ring, and then the bright red corolla ring and the start of where the ovary will attach.

 Another cut a bit further along....












And now you can see that we've definitely gotten to the ovary.

I'm not sure what the triangular shape with the empty middle is though....

 This shot shows the layers a little more clearly. If you use a bit of imagination and look very carefully at the center bit, you can see the forming seeds in the ovary. They are the darker marks. You'll notice that everything on a gesneriad has hair! Everything!!! Even the developing ovary.

 We're further along the flower now and up high enough to be getting to the top of the developing ovary.

We should also be getting into where some of the stamen are....

 And LOOKIE here! We don't have the dark calyx ring of tissue anymore, we have only the really pretty dark red corolla (petal) layer.

Do you notice in the upper right hand corner you CAN see the seeds forming in the ovary better but this is the cool part.... In the bottom middle of the photo you can see the lump of greenish tissue connected to the red corolla. It's where the stamen connect to the flower! If we had made the cut up any higher in the flower it will not be connected but be the independent stalk (the filament) that holds up the pollen sacs.

 

 A shot of the tip of the ovary in the bottom middle of the photo and the filaments in the upper mid to left of the photo. The red, hairy corolla is of course to the right.

 Here's a shot of the section on the slide to give you a better notion of how these relate to the magnified photos.

 The last cut was quite high up on the flower and really all that was left to see in cross section was what follows.....

The pollen sacs (anthers) on the cute pink filaments. These pollen sacs aren't quite ready to break all the way open yet, but you can see a little of the pollen sneaking out to the right hand side of the photo.

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Vanhouttea lanata: Not just your average Gesneriad

I had a really wonderful surprise yesterday when I went into the plant room. Look at the bright cheerful little thing that was blooming!!!

Ron Myhr with his incredible Gesneriad Reference Web says this about the Vanhouttea: "This unusual gesneriad grows tall and rangy, and has an unusual calyx form, where the calyx enfolds the flower bud in a manner similar to a bract, opening only to allow the flower to emerge."
 

For those of you who haven't already gotten very used to using the Gesneriad Reference Web as a fantastic(!!!) source of information, click on the words above and it will link you right to it.

I'm very interested to see if this plant will like my conditions of (mostly) benign neglect. It bloomed at quite a small size, although the description says it's a rangy shrub form, and perhaps with pruning and not too much pampering this will thrive for me! YAY! Really nicely colored flowers too. I'm wondering if it will inter-generically cross with anything else??? We might have an experiment here, stay tuned.

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Transplanting Sinningia Seedlings, Sinningia bullata x douglasii x self

Obviously, these seedlings are opening the box for themselves and desperately trying to crawl out. Time to pot them up into a little larger space.

These are from the Gesneriad Society Seed Fund. It's the top label, the natural hybrid of Sinningia bullata x leopoldii x self.

 This is what they look like with the cover off. They are quite crowded but healthy and ready for transplanting.

 Just the usual reminder, always label your work with the plant's name, and any other information you wish to remember. It can't be said enough times that you will (after a couple of months) NOT remember just which of the little pots had the "special" plant you wanted to check on.

 Gently lift the mass of seedlings out of the original pot. Trying to extract them one at a time still in the container seems to damage many and not be very useful.

I like to use a "recycled" party tray for a work space. The bright white plastic makes finding what you're looking for much easier. Before you start ripping and tearing, take a second to really LOOK at what you're about to do. There's usually a better side to start out with than the others.

 A little magnification doesn't hurt and some tools with delicate ends don't hurt either. You don't need tweezers but a nice slim skewer with a pointed end, or a thin object pointed like a pencil helps loosen tangled roots a bit more delicately than a huge set of fingers.

 I was so EXCITED to find that the seedlings had already produced tiny tubers! This is pretty cool if you ask me! It also says that I probably was leaving the seedlings in the seedling-box too long. You can see the little ball and some roots in the center of the photo.

 This was another seedling with a tuber already forming. Some of the seedlings didn't have such handsome tubers yet, but you get the idea.... Sinningias are great! They try to protect themselves from infant-hood onwards with a tuber that will start growing again if something terrible happens to the top, such as being eaten off by livestock.

Here is a shot of the three RED community pots I put the seedlings in so they can continue to grow larger. (The orange are S. douglasii). I got the community pot idea from Patty K!!!! She makes the excellent point that the seedlings need to have some roots growing before they need individual pots. Why waste 20 or 30 two inch pots and all the soil that goes into each of them when a few community pots will allow plenty of space for each of the babies for now and take up much less room under the lights when they are first establishing themselves. After the plants get slightly crowded in these pots and have a healthy root system they can go into an individual pot.

After the community pots have their precious seedlings in them, they need to be modestly watered so that the soil is MOIST but not soaking, soggy and drippy.... then put the seedlings in a tray with a dome on it so that it mimics the closed environment that they just came from in their little closed deli container. You will slowly transition them to open air later.

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