Some new flowers

This long weekend was spent pottering around in the greenhouse and fussing over some of my new orchids. I had placed an order for some Polystachya species from Van Rooyen's Orchids in Johannesburg about two weeks ago and these arrived safely last week although the box they had been packaged in was severely squashed upon arrival. Luckily the solid wooden rafts of two of the plants stopped the plants from becoming damaged. The new plants include P. caespitifica, P. ottoniana, P. paniculata and P. pubescens.

P. caespitifica

P. ottoniana

P. paniculata

P. pubescens

The Phalaenopsis hieroglyphica that I recently got from Plantae have just started to flower now too. One of the buds was a bit damaged but I took a couple of shots of it starting to open. The pics were taken in the morning and late afternoon to show the day's progress. This flower has been selfed and the others will be used for cross-pollinating others. The other flower opened on 22 March and looks good.

P. hieroglyphica early morning

P. hieroglyphica late afternoon

Second flower opened 22 March 2011

As some of you will know, I am not a fan of the Cattleya alliance. The flowers to me seem so fabricated...anyway, they do smell wonderful. My wife likes these so I do have a few in my collection. Recently, one of "my wife's plants" flowered. I am not quite sure what the grex is but I will add this in here some time when I have a closer look at the tag burried at the bottom of the pot somewhere. Here are some pics of this plant in flower:

Single flower: my wife's plant

Flowers and buds opening on my wife's plant