Jul. 15, 2014 [update]: The second flower spike we got has finally opened!
Jun. 28, 2014 [update]: In a lot of orchid educational talks or references, people often say that flowers in certain plants “open at the same time”. I often thought of this as something like what Dendrobiums and Phalaenopsis plants do–buds open in such a way where the flowers in an inflorescence can be in bloom at the same time even though they actually open a few at a time.
This is probably our first experience where the flowers of a plant literally “open at the same time”. Yesterday, the buds on our Gongora fulva were still closed. This is what we saw this morning.
Jun. 26, 2014 [update]: The buds of our Gongora fulva are about to burst open!
And the Lepanthes calodictyon is in full bloom! The flowers are incredibly tiny and hard to take a picture of.
Jun. 15, 2014 [update]: When we moved the Gongora fulva into the makeshift greenhouse, all the flower spikes that were growing when we got the plant blasted. Bummer for sure but we knew the plants needed to adjust to our environment. We’re so excited to see it’s shooting out two new flower spikes now.
May 23, 2014 [update]: The Masd. asterotricha flower spike was still in bud yesterday but today it’s in full bloom!
Yesterday:
Today:
May 8, 2014 [update]: We got a flower spike on our Masdevallia asterotricha! So exciting!
Apr. 21, 2014 [update]: In the process of looking for the ID of our Gongora, we found out that the vendor we bought it from was Michel Orchid Nursery. We emailed Erich Michel (the owner) if the Gongora had a name and he responded to us today! We have Gongora fulva!
It’s interesting to see all the variations the flower of this Gongora can have. Picture above from Internet.
Apr. 13, 2014: It’s the last day of the Michigan Orchid Society 60th Annual Palm Sunday Orchid Show. We volunteered to help in the teardown of the show but took the opportunity to get in a little bit more of the show by going in early. Couldn’t resist walking around the vendor area again and was pleasantly surprised that the vendors started marking down prices.
Passing by one of the vendor booths, we noticed a lovely Gongora plant. I mentioned that I doubt it’s for sale since it looked like a specimen size plants but Larry asked for the price anyways: $35 got us our first Gongora! Unfortunately we only discovered that there was no label in this plant when we got home. 😦
The flowers are very fragrant with a spicy scent.
We also passed by the Ecuagenera booth again and got a great deal on awesome plants.
Lepanthes calodictyon is a tiny tiny plant. A fellow MOS member enthusiastically talked about hers and told us this plant was way bigger than what she got and it’s a great deal. Since Larry loves foliage plants, it was an easy sell.
The flowers look like bugs (picture from internet)
For the Masdevallias we bought, we went by the size/look of the plant rather than what the flowers would be since we ultimately want to collect them all. This is Masdevallia asterotricha.
Masdevallia asterotricha flowers are basic yellow
Masdevallia angulata
The flowers of Masdevallia angulata are quite colorful (picture from Internet)
Masdevallia caudata
The form and color of the flowers of Masdevallia caudata are amazing (picture from Internet)
We had to pick up a Dracula, too. The Ecuagenera dude mentioned he had one Dracula gigas black somewhere and that he would give us a good price for it. We took the offer of course!
Can’t seem to find any online pictures for a Dracula gigas black. This picture is for the normal Dracula gigas. More incentive to get this plant to bloom!
Orchid count: #133-138
Orchidelirium 
