Items of interest for species orchid fanatics

BP SPECIES NEWSLETTER July 2001

July 00 Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan 01 Feb Mar April May June

NEWS FLASH: MACODES LOWII see notes and illustration below.
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A. What's New in Flask; Dendrobium atroviolaceum, Stanhopea tigrina "Supberba" Lecoufle, Macodes lowii (illustration from L.Linden, L'Illustration Horticole).
B. What's Ready to replate; Phalaenopsis gibbosa, Phal lueddemanniana, Phal pantherina.
C. What's New in Plants; Leptotes unicolor, Coryanthes leucocorys, Nervilia discolor.
D. Culture; Orchids in the wild, Sunday Creek.
E. Web Site www.speciesorchids.com.
F. Humour.
G. Subscribe or Unsubscribe this newsletter.

Right; Macodes lowii (illustration from L.Linden, L'Illustration Horticole), Photos in this issue: Nervilia discolor, Nervilia peltata, Habenaria ochroleuca.

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A. What's New in flask.

Macodes lowii. A semiterrestrial species that is found growing naturally in leafy humus and moss on shaded rocks. Plants should thus be grown in a well drained media in shallow containers, with a media that will stay damp but not wet. A shallow terracotta saucer is perhaps the ideal container. After flowering, the plants should be rested somewhat drier until the new growth starts. The leaves reach a size of about 7 cms (3 inches) long and half as wide, dark green to black green, with fine filigree-like iridescent metallic red to pink veins, purple underneath. Related to Macodes javanica and petola, the plants are grown for the very beautiful foliage, the flowers are quite small, pinkish and finely furry. Shade requirements are similar to that for the mottled leaf Paphiopedilum and Phalaenopsis. A native of lands of high rainfall, humidity should be kept high unless the plant is resting. Macodes lowii is a jewel orchid suitable for terrainium and window sill culture, as are the other jewel orchids like Dossinia, Ludisia (Haemaria), Goodyera and Anoectochilus. A large plant with a long rhizome can usually be cut halfway along the rhizome to produce another growing shoot, best done as the rhizome starts new growth after its resting period. Dendrobium atroviolaceum, a small to medium size plant with clusters of cream yellow flowers, the lip is veined dark violet. A latourea species from New Guinea, requires a small pot and well drained media that will stay damp but not wet. Stanhopea tigrina "Superba" an outstanding flower form raised from seed from Lecoufle, Paris. Huge cream yellow flowers barred dark purple chocolate. Robust grower, very fragrant, requires a basket and a fine media such as spaghnam moss or bark mixture. TOP

B. What's ready to replate NOW.

Phalaenopsis gibbosa, a minature species related to Phal. lobbi and Phal. parishi, this has pale purple pink flowers. A jungle plant from Vietnam, it does best on a mount, treefern if available, or in a very small pot, with heavy shade. Phalaenopsis lueddemanniana from the Philippines is a showy waxy pale pink to cream with red purple bars. Deliciously scented, it grows readily and will also produce kkeikis that can be tied back to the basket or mount to produce a clump. Does best in a small basket or a large piece of treefern. Phalaenopsis pantherina from Borneo is the large, brighter coloured version of Phal cornu cervi. The flowers are glossy yellow with red brown bars, on a spike that progressively flowers. Another basket subject, or slab with extra water. TOP C. What's new in Plants. Leptotoes unicolor, on small pieces of cork. This is a minature clumping species with small terete leaves, and proportionaly large pink waxy flowers. Grow under the same light conditions as Dendrobium, with extra water for plants growing on a slab of cork or treefern. Coryanthes leucocorys, a Bucket orchid, with huge fantastic white and red flowers. Best grown in a small basket in a fine media that will stay damp, hanging to avoid chewing pests, in a fairly shady, warm area. These are growing well in 7cm basket pots in a mix of spaghnam and shredded isolite. Nervilia discolor, a showy Jewel orchid type plant, with Laelia like purple flowers. These plants a have now gone dormant for the Australian winter, so dormant tubers are best sent August for the Australian Spring or for the late Northern June 2001. A terrestrtial species, best grown in a rich leafmould sandy soil mix, in a deep pot. The flower precedes the new leaf in spring, and once in spike, should be watered heavily. While resting, keep barely damp. TOP

D. SUNDAY CREEK

  The track was overgrown, disappearing, but recognisable enough to take me back many years to a time of fond companions eagerly exploring the edges of the creek.
    The creek, an unbroken canopied corridor through wet melaleuca flats and open eucalyptus forest, was host to a fascinating array of orchid species, inviting exploration.
    Under the canopy, on the top of the bank, a colony of Nervilia dallachyana, hugging the well drained slope of leafmould rich soil, glistened green and purple flushed green, beautiful heart shaped, veined leaves. Named after an early
Queensland surveyor and pathfinder, his botanical immortality sadly lost with the reclassification of the species to Nervilia
discolor, and then yet again to Nervilia plicata. Photo above left, below right Nervilia plicata.
   A short distance away, in the shade of a large eucalypt, on a small patch of bare

ground was our first exciting find. Looking more like little grey green mushrooms, flat on the ground, barely an inch across, were the leaves of a new Nervilia. There was about a dozen of them, carefully counted on each subsequent visit in search of flowers which were never found.
    We speculated, perhaps this was the long lost Nervilia pachystomoides.
    Further out in the eucalypt forest, we did unknowingly find this lost species in the pure sparkling white flowers of Didymoplexis pallens, a saprophyte. Seen years later, a drawing of the holotype of Nervilia pachystomoides clearly showed its true identity as the Didymoplexis. A little gem, hiding in the grass tussocks.
    Squatting in the grass, debating the identity of Pachystoma holtzei; was this an orchid or merely a common look alike?, a plicate leafed, grass like plant. The buried tuber, distinctively shaped, like that of a thin drawn out Eulophia tuber, confirmed its identity. The flowers came later, pale pink green, the lip with a green yellow disc.

  Growing in the same area was Calochilus holtzei, its bright red metallic coloured flowers on a spike a metre or more tall, and around the grass trees, colonies of Spiculea iritabilis.
    Out of the forest, into the wet melaleuca flat, the ground soggy, the habitat of Habenarias anomala, ferdinandii and ochroleuca and one or two other species, their green white plume spikes scattered through the grass beneath the teatrees. The teatrees held Dendrobium canaliculatum, and button orchids, really a Distidia, and ant plants with aggressive inhabitANTS.
    There too grew an unidentified Calochilus, smaller than the Calochilus holtzei, also with beautiful metallic coloured flowers.
    Back into the shade of the creek's canopy, growing at the bottom of the bank, was another exciting find in large leafy plants of Habenaria sumatrana, its tiny pure white flowers, with a distinctive 3 lobed lip, borne on foot high spikes. A long way from its holotype location in Sumatra, but wide spread throughout Indonesia, Malaysia, New Guinea and there blooming in a shady creek in Queensland.
    Sharing its habitat, thin wiry plants of Apostasia stylidioides produced tiny yellow flowers, not orchid like at all.
         The track was overgrown, disappearing, and as I followed long ago footsteps, the present bought a scenery of change.

     Gone was the unbroken canopy, raggedly cut by power lines and towers, rough roads bulldozed over the creek, to make way for cattle and tractor slashers.    Gone was the colony of Nervillia discolor, a road gutter in its place. Gone the treasured grey green mushroom Nervillia, a bush tractor shed and oil drums in its place.
     Gone were the Calochilus and Pachystoma and Spiculea, a slashed field for cattle left behind.
     Gone were the Habenarias, Dendrobiums, and the melaleuca flat, a pine plantation instead.
     Gone were the Habenaria sumatrana, its shelter destroyed, and cattle left to tread the banks into eroded paths. Only the Apostasia somehow maintained a hold in the shelter of some Lantana shrub.
             A second colony of little grey green mushroom Nervilias, (Photo above left, and right, N.peltata), found years after the first, captured on an island between the old highway and the new, deprived of the periodic fire burn off, covered and smothered with leafmould and debris, deprived of sunlight, gone.
          Only the saprophtic Didymoplexis found the leafmould and debris a rich boon, having no leaves in need of sunlight, their elegant white flowers rising above the carpet of leaves.
     A third colony of the grey green mushroom Nervilia, (recently named Nervilia peltata) still exists, precariously 6 inches from a 4wheeldrive fisherman’s track, about a dozen little plants growing on the edge of destruction.

      Photographs and text by    Ian Walters, Burleigh Park Orchid Nursery,
      54 Hammond Way, Thuringowa, Queensland. Australia.4815.
           Names of species may have changed with progress and botanists’ views, but these were the species we found and their names at the time. For more photos www.speciesorchids.com Photo right Habenaria ochroleuca

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E. Web page.

Check out our web page www.speciesorchids.com EMAIL address   Year 2000 winner of “Linda the Orchid Lady” award . EMAIL address The links are tested before they are published and the URLs are accurate. Therefore, if the link does not work, you should be able to copy and paste the URLs into your browser window and access the pages that way. TOP F. Humour.A prospective father in law was talking to his daughters fiance....
".......and what are your job prospects, son ?"
Boy: "I hope to study the Bible and religion"
Father: "...and will that be enough to support a wife"
Boy: "The Lord will provide"
Father:   "...and will you be able to support a wife and children if that eventuates?"
Boy: "The Lord will provide"
Father, discussing this with his wife.
Wife: "What did you make of our future son in law?"
Father: "Well, the bad news is he does not have much prospects in the way of a job and a living, but the goods news is, he thinks I'm God."
On a maiden a man once begat,
Bouncing triplets, Pat, Nat and Tat,
Twas fun in the breedling,
But Hell in the feeding,
She didn't have a spare tit fot tat.

A woman went to the post office to buy stamps for her Christmas cards.
"What denomination?" asked the clerk.
"Oh, good heavens! Have we come to this?" said the woman.
"Well,give me 50 Church of England and 50 Catholic ones please."
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G. Subscribe or Unsubscribe
To have your name added or removed from the mailing list, email   click here         Unsubscribe me please!" or click here TOP ORCHID AUCTION ACTION Have a look at this new Orchid Auction site, get those spare plants sold now! Orchid Auction Site ............................ BOOKS on orchids; We are negotiating with a major Book Seller, watch this space Custom flasking; We are outsourcing our Custom Flasking Work and will link you direct to a professional service. Watch this space. Flasking medias; click on here and go to Supplies page www.speciesorchids.com ................. For working Nursery Medias for Mother and Replate Flasks. ............................ A special note on flasking orchids. Due to the need for a filtered air vent on flasks to allow exchange of gasses, a reliable air filter medium is needed. Non absorbant cotton wool allows gas exchange but does not absorb moisture. Thus the air filter will stay dry and prevent the growth of fungus thru the filter, a common problem with ordinary cotton wool which gets wet, goes mouldy and allows the mould to grow thru the filter to contaminate the flask. Non Absorbant Cottonwool NOW AVAILABLE in 375 gram rolls, contact us NOW. Yours in orchids, Ian and Pat Walters, Burleigh Park Orchid Nursery 54 Hammond Way, Thuringowa, Australia 4815 Email us at www.speciesorchids.com Phone Fax 0747 740 008 International 61 747 740 008 TOP