Orchid of the day: Cattleya walkeriana 'Kenny'.

Today's post is another 'from-buds-to-blooming-flowers' series. We followed the development of buds since early April this year and decided to see how many flowers would turned out. Arne said this orchid might not be what they say it is. He wrote a paragraph to expand on this 'issue'. All I know it is a Cattleya and it does exude a pleasant and tolerable perfume especially in the mornings and mildly throughout the day.

A) April 8th. We noticed buds creeping out.

B) April 8th. Buds were visible within the leaf. At this time only two appeared.

C) April 22nd. Next thing you know, more than a week went by and it turned out three buds were already well developed. We kept this orchid in our orchidarium in the basement.

D) The three flower buds at a different angle.

E) A few days later, the buds continued to developed.

Below is Arne's contribution to my post about this orchid. 

"Although I have several ‘natural-looking’ orchid hybrids in my collection, I always prefer species.  So when I visited Maryland’s annual orchid exhibition three years ago, I was really happy to find a white variety of Cattleya walkeriana for sale at Seagrove Orchids.  I have been very lucky with the walkeriana that I have at home so I bought it.  Linda Thorne at Seagrove Orchids did mention that ‘Kenny’ was a beautiful orchid but whether it was a true variety of C. walkeriana or a hybrid of it was not known.  My other walkeriana is mounted but this plant was sold in a small pot and had two buds so I didn’t dare to put in on a cork mount until it had flowered.  My first thought was that it was strange that the buds emerged from a maturing shoot.  In C. walkeriana the flower stem emerges in the form of a leafless shoot, normally without any leaf, from the base of the matured vegetative growth.  Then it was the fragrance; it didn’t smell like a walkeriana flower, simply.  Also, once ‘Kenny’ started growing on its mount I noticed how it attached itself loosely and not like walkeriana, which cannot be separated from the cork slab.  Now when I look at it I’m completely convinced that the plant is not a walkeriana.  To make a long story short, I searched for information about ‘Kenny’ and it is now established, supposedly, that C. walkeriana ‘Kenny’ is a hybrid called Cattleya Snowblind ‘Kenny’ and contains, in addition to walkeriana, also C. dolosa and C. loddigesii.  However, C. dolosa is a natural hybrid between walkeriana and loddigesi, which makes Cattleya Snowblind ‘Kenny’ a beautiful white primary hybrid between the two species loddigesi and walkeriana." By Arne Schon.

F) May 2014. The flowers have been in bloom since the beginning of May but this photo is taken today May 11th, on Mother's day. Each flower is about 3 inches from left to right.

G) Up close of the three gorgeous flowers. Now our Cattleya walkeriana 'Kenny' resides in our study window to get more light and space.

I hope you enjoyed this post and the beauty of these flowers. So far it has been 2 weeks since the flowers bloomed. They would probably last for another three to four weeks. Until next time, Happy Mother's Day.