Orchid of the day: Cattleya walkeriana var. coerulea

Cattleya walkeriana var. coerulea 2014

I posted about Cattleya walkeriana var. coerulea on January 29th, 2014. This orchid seems to bloom at the same time this year. We had high hopes this year as we noticed there were at least 3 flower stems developing in November. A brief background, the common name of this orchid is Walker's Cattleya, in honour of an English orchid collector in Brazil in the 1800s. Also known as the Queen of the Brazilian Savannah.

A) I started following the flower stems' development on Nov 8th. Clearly four buds were breaking out into blooms at this stage.

B) Upon further examination, we saw a flower stem slowly developing from the top at the same time.

C) By Nov 19th, two of the flower buds to the very right opened and a strong fragrance filled the air. It would appear the buds were not quite synchronized to open at the same time!

D) The newly opened flower had a clear light purple hue on the petals and dark purplish vein-like pattern on the lip. If you look closely, there is a tinge of yellow in the center, the column.

E) Still, only two flowers opened up on Nov 19th...

As I kept waiting for all six blooms to open up, I realized that if I keep waiting to post this, the two early flowers (Nov 8th) would be gone. We saw the saw phenomena last year where after one month of flowering the bright purple colour began to fade away and so does the fragrance. 

F) Dec 14th 2014. The last two buds still haven't opened up.

G) The shape of the four blooms are still intact but the colours are fading away.

H) Finally the two buds in the above photo (G) opened up on Dec 20th.

I) Observe the clear difference in the intensity of the colours between the two flowers to left and the other two to the right. Looks like two different orchids. By this time, the two flowers which bloomed on Nov 19th (C), had withered away.

J) Here are the four flowers from Dec 28th 2013. The peak of their glory.

It is also obvious to us that the orchid has grown a lot since last year. Clearly doing well and mostly we will have to split them in 2015. Of course we will need more space!