Then prepare yourselves for the adventerous roots, the piles of dead flowers
and the high growing characteristics of this plant - our's easily reaches the
greenhouse roof before flowering... Apart from that, it has to be one of the
easiest orchids to grow and provides months of flowering (I'm actually trying
to remember if our's has ever stopped flowering...) Curious features of the
plant are it's upside-down flowers (the lip points upwards, giving it the
common name of crucifix orchid due to it's cross-shaped lip) and it's readily
produced plantlets from the nodes in the stem. The small flowers (about an
inch or so long) come in many colors (mostly reds, pink, purples, yellows and
oranges) and are produced by the hundreds in large "spikes". As Barry says,
very pretty!
>Unfortunately I missed my orchid _Bletia purpurea_ and _Utricularia praelonga_
>in flower.
Unfortuneately, indeed! If this is the same species are my Bletia (Chinese
Ground orchid or, for some strange reason, Pink Hyacinth orchid - it looks
nothing like a hyacinth) then you missed a very attractive flower. It's
something like a small Cattelya, but much easier to grow... In fact, some
gardening books say you can grow them outdoors (in Australia, at least) *in the
ground*! We've also had Crucifix orchids growing in the garden - I'm not sure
if they grew in soil, or just in river rocks and leaf-litter which we had in
that area.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| John Taylor [The Banshee] | Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology |
| rphjt@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au | Department of Applied Physics |
| MOKING IS A HEALTH HAZARD. | Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+