Serendipity: Stenoglottis longifolium

I was recently on a mission to find some local terrestrial species and/or seeds of these for a colleague in Germany with whom I am doing a seed swop. I had been promised some Phalaenopsis taenialis, P. cornu-cervi, P. lindenii, P. celebensis, P. aphrodite, P. violacea (forma Mentawai), P. gigantea and P. heiroglyphica. Finding local species' seeds is not easy! I drove down to Somerset West and visited the Helderberg Nature Reserve's indigenous plant nursery and found two small Stenoglottis longifolium plants, one of which still had an old flowering stem attached with two seed pods. I removed the stem and the two pods for my colleague and I have included an image of one of the plant below.



Stenoglottis longifolium



Visit to Duckitts orchid show 16 September 2010

Yesterday (Thursday) 16 September I took my family up to Darling to the opening day of Duckitts' orchid show on Oude Post farm. I hadn't been at the show for several years now so I promised myself that I would be there early on the first day to ensure I had a good chance of getting the plants I wanted from the sales area. To be honest I was a little disappointed with the range of plants on sale but also the fact that the Phalaenopsis on sale did not bare any labels, so no grex names or parentage. I queried this with the volunteers servicing the sales area but they could only suggest that these plants had been produced for the pot-plant trade and therefore were devoid of any discernable nomenclature. Well... I ended up buying some great looking plants anyway because the flowers looked particularly high-quality. All these were re-potted into bark chips as soon as I got back home. I also bought a flowering Angraecum sesquipedale (var. angustifolia) and I had been hoping they would be on sale. There are lots more but none in flower.

I have compiled a few photos that I took randomly while wondering through the show area. There were some really beautiful plants on view some of which I could not find labels for to provide you with any names, but I will do my best...I have also added images of those which I bought - enjoy.

Mini Cymbidium something or other

A deep red-brown Cymbidium

My Angraecum sesquipedale (var. angustifolia)

Ansellia africana pure yellow

Ansellia africana heavy spots

Epidendrum pseudoepidendrum

Dendrobium sp.

Disa hybrid

Epidendrum something or other

Aerangis hyaloides

Oncidium someting or other

Laelia? something hybrid

Large Cattleya intergeneric hybrid something

Phalaenopsis one I bought

Phalaenopsis one I bought

Phalaenopsis one I bought

Phalaenopsis one I bought

Update 10 September 2010

Ansellia africana

My A. africana parent plant flowers

Prof. van Staden from the Research Centre for Plant Growth and Development at the University of KwaZulu Natal has kindly donated a few ex-vitro A. africana plantlets from his research. A friend of mine in Durban is organising to collect the plants and ship them down to me next week. These are completely yellow flowers, not the mottled kind and are from KwaZulu Natal. I am looking forward to receiving them.  My pod-parent plant recently flowered again so I took some more photos and photos of the progress of one of the pods. Both pods are doing very well.

As above (close up)

A. africana pod as of 10 Sept 10

Phalaenopsis Woolworths big pink pods

One of the three pods did not survive (P. Golden wonder X P. Woolworths big pink) but the other two (P. Golden wonder X P. Woolworths big pink and P. Woolworths big pink X self) are growing nicely and developing well.

P. Woolworths big pink pod as of 10 Sept 10

Stem props / clones

After initial contamination of some of the containers, most stems are doing well but growing very slowly! Its worse than watching paint dry! Some stems did not develop at all and have died which is to be expected from plants that may contain contaminants within the stems themselves. I have moved the P. amabilis stems into separate McCartneys into new media. The Oncidium stems have (all but one) produced flower spikes from their nodes... this is odd but not unique. I will sub-culture these further when they have matured. All (?) the internodal sections appear not to have done much at all. I will keep an eye on them anyway for a few more months but by now something should have happened so I think they may not make it. This is probably due to the concentrations of Benzylaminopurine and/or Naphthaleneacetic acid. I will re-look into this again later.