catasetum naso

sorry to those who read the earlier post about this that is labelled as catasetum sanguineum. i bought this plant labelled as catasetum sanguineum,
catasetum naso and sanguineum looks similar in the sense that both the lip are trilobe, non resupinated, erected peduncle and have a nose like projection at the tip of the lip. however, the borders of the lateral lobes of sanguineum is fully lacerate while catasetum naso's borders are only lacerate near the base. the second most distinguishing character is the pedicles, sanguineum measures only about 10mm while catasetum naso have a longer peidcle of 20mm.
in addition to that, sanguineum flowers are more densely packed at the end of the inflorescence while catasetum naso has flowers that are separated by bracts that are about 30mm apart.
so base on these description, conclusion is made that this plant is Catasetum naso and not sanguineum

on the left of the first pic is a hermaphrodite flowers, and the right one is the male flower

 second pic on the left shows the lateral lobes of the labellum that is serrated and curves inwards to form an almost complete circle that is interrupted by the trigger pollina. the lateral view shows the prominent nose like projection from the apex of the labellum,

the last pic below showing the detail lip appearance of the labellum from inside

catasetum susan fuchs 'yellow bird'

catasetum susan fuchs is a hybrid between orchidglade and expansum. the earlier is the primary hybrid between pileatum and expansum. there are many variety of susan fuchs, yellow bird being one of them. at a glance, it looks somehow like a pileatum but the presence of small calluses just beneath the depression at the labellum tells us it is not. the presence of the calluses are from the expansum influence.
i bought this seedlings about a year plus ago, though this spike has only two flowers but there are already three spikes emerging from this plant, so basically no complaints (shown in first pic)

catasetum fimbriatum (another clone)

got this plant by mistaken identity, flowered today with 12 inflorescence. The name Catasetum fimbriatum (fim-bree-ah-tum) is derived from the latin name fimbriae which means fringe, referring to the fringed borders of the lip which is the characteristic of this species. The lip is trilobed, with heavy fringes on the lateral borders and at the base of the lobe, there lies a heavy callus that may assume different shapes in different clones. The sepals of this species are light green with brown spots, and these coloration are usually more intense on the petals. The dorsal sepals of this species along with the petals forms a hood like structure covering over the column of the flower.

above pic showing the entire spike with 12 inflorescence 

 second pic showing the frontal view of the flower, heavily fimbriated lateral lobes of the labellum with a prominent callus at the center of the base of the lobe, resembling a bird spreading out its wings

close up on the lip 

 the final pic showing the lateral aspect of the flower

as the flower matures, the lateral sepals will fold backwards almost or touching the pedicles, by then when the flower is view from the frontal view, only the dorsal hood (sepal and petals) and the triblobe lip are visible. will try to post a pic of the flower when they reaches this stage.

here is how they appear upon full bloom, lateral sepals arching toward backwards, showing only the lip and the dorsal hood plus the column from the front.

orchids protocorns, symbiotic germination

while i was spending my routine evening times in my orchid garden, something caught my attention. it looks like an orchid keiki and gently i lifted the plant out as it was adhering to one piece of coconut hush chips. upon inspection, no doubt it is an orchid protocorn with roots coming out and three growths as well.
orchid germination can happens in two ways, namely the symbiotic germination or the natural way secondly the asymbiotic germination or in vitro, that is by flasking. in symbiotic germination, the orchid seed need to be infected by a mycorrhizal fungus for germination to occur and this fungal will feed the orchid protocorns until they are mature enough. protocorn will slowly turn green and with the aid of the chlorophyll photosynthesis is able to take place.
in asymbiotic germination, mycorrhizal fungal does not play a role and sugar are added into the media to feed the germinating seed initially as they produce their own food during the initial phase.
as far as i can remember, i had only scattered two seeds, one is a phalenopsis pulcherrima and another one is my very first catasetum hybrid in which i experimented with my DIY flasking.
gently i removed the remaining coconut husk from the root attachment and then transferred it to a clay pot with loosely packed sphagnum moss. from the gross appearance of the leaves, it does looks like a CATASETUM to me!

in the last pic i included three arrow showing the three new growths emerging from the protocorns.

24/5/2012 - sad to say that the orchid protocorm did not make it, severe fungal/bacteria infection causes a fast rotting of the protocorn that eventually kills the keiki in about 2 days time. what a short lived joy, though disappointment is at its peak but in the same time also give me stronger encouragement to try to germinate more orchids in the future, especially with flasking. 

Catasetum penang (ctsm pileatum x susan fuchs)

hi fellow catasetums fans, i had posted spike of this plant before but just thought to share some stories behind this plant. when i got this plant, it is at the end of the bloom but somehow all the bulbs just rotted together in less than a week. i manage to salvage on bulb, and from there i build up this plant.

now it has three bulbs, and for this round, it produces 8 blooms in a spike. UNFORTUNATELY, before the full bloom sets in, some insect had already ejected one of the pollina. and to make thing worst, while i was taking some photograph of this plant, it fell from the platform and another two pollen was ejected. it sustain minor bruises on the flowers but plant unharmed. such unfortunate event for this catasetum!  

hermaphrodite flowers

somewhere earlier in on of my post i had mentioned before about influence of lighting towards sex determination of catasetum flowers. here is one of my catasetum plant, the first spike if forming with two female flowers and before it blooms, i can see the emergence of the second spike. as always there is a shade house of mine where is would hang my catasetums plant during the hot spell of the months to get a male spike. here they would receive nothing more than 4 hours of sunlight but the area is bright enough.
during when i transferred this plant over, the female bud is just forming, and i had no idea that the reduction in lighting would have so much effect on the development.
in the pic you can see that this female had intense color and also formation of a unilateral trigger pollina; indicating it is a hermaphrodite flower. i did trigger the pollina but there were no pollen, it ejected out a stalk with the sticky substance as usual but without the pollen mass.

i insert a second similar pic pointing out the unilateral trigger pollina here for ease of viewing 

a final pic of a female bud (from another plant). you can see that the flower stalk are thick unlike those male flower that are thin. also here there is a darker green part of the bud which will later developed into the dome structure of the female flower. 

just some new update, tru hermaphrodite flowers that just flowered in my gardenn, from the frontal view, it looks like a male catasetum with the two trigger pollina, but from the side the large cap like structure of the female is truly visible. in addition to this, there are intense coloration of the labellum for these hermaphrodites.

the pic down below shows the large caplike structure, with the pair of trigger pollina as well 

frontal view showing the intense coloration of the labellum, without looking at the cap structure, one would easily mistaken this as a male flower

lateral view of the flower showing the prominent female characteristic of the flower

catasetum naso x catasetum jumbo pearl

this plant belongs to one of those few early hybrid on mine in the collection. from the characteristic of the spike and shape of flower, basically it had a strong genetic influence of the ctsm naso. the spike is upward, and the downward facing labellum with the nose like projection at the tip of the labellum.
the first spike is with 6 female flowers due to the hot weather a month plus ago. as the second spike was developing, i can see the fat flower stalk starts to form, indicating a female flower again. i then transfer the plant to a dimmer area, and luckily i got a male flower at the end of the spike. so three female flower and a male, but the male bloomed a week later after the female, mostly due to the energy of the plant is directed towards the formation of three seed pod that i had pollinated a week ago.
on this second spike there is three female flowers forming and i took the liberty to pollinate them with three different catasetums.
my first experiment with DIY media flasking still haven't show any signs of germination till now, so i think for these three pods, i think i gonna order some commercial media to try it out. anyone who is interested to try out commercial media for flasking, this is one link which i came across.
http://www.orchidseed.com/media/media.html
anyone who had success or tried different types of media whether it is commercial or DIY, please drop me a link, i would like to learn more about it.

second pic showing the swelling of the three ovaries after pollination, the male flower bloomed 5 days later after the female, mostly due to the energy is directed temporarily to the formation of the seed pod initially

 lateral image of the flower, here you can see the nose like projection from the labellum, showing strong influence of the naso blood line

spike that is erected upwards, characteristic again of the naso

the final pic here, showing the full bloom of the flower........................................................................