Orchid of the day: Eurychone rothschildiana

Eurychone rothschildiana

Did you know that Eurychone rothschildiana was called Angraecum rothschildiana? It is still the synonym. The flowers are about 2.5 inches in diameter and emit a slight fragrance. Although it was very mild to almost absence in our hand. It started to produce flower stems and buds in early August this year and now almost all the flowers, on one of the stem, are open and some have wilted. 

A) August 30th.The first flowers stem showing at least six buds.

B) The second flower stem is not very visible (to the right) here but we can see the roots shooting upwards.

We have 2 flowers stems; the first had seven flowers and the second stem, still has three buds waiting to open. This orchid is found in Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, basically in the central region of Africa. It loves moist and shady conditions to flourish. These orchids are monopodial and are small sized.

C) By early September, two beautiful flowers had emerged. A slight fragrance was noted but nothing too strong.

D) View from above. Here you can see the second flower stem growing to the right side of this picture.

E) The flowers up close. Note the delicate white surrounding the apple green color of the petals.

Below is a paragraph that Arne put together for me to share with you. Everyday is a learning experience for me. The flowers only last for about 2 weeks once it is open.

"The orchid family has more than 25,000 orchid species and no other plant family in the world can beat that.  It is therefore no surprise that every real orchid enthusiast once in a while suddenly stumbles upon a beautiful orchid species that he or she never heard of before.  That happened to me some nine months ago when I was searching for a small-sized orchid with relatively large flowers and found Eurychone rothschildiana.   I had simply never ever heard of it!  Eurychone rothschildiana is a rather small Phalaenopsis-like plant from Africa and has beautiful white and green flowers with a dark throat that disappears into its spur.  I gave it a try and I must say that it has grown surprisingly fast and is now awarding us with astonishingly large flowers on two stems.  Actually, the flowers are larger than average which makes me thinking of taking it for judging in the future.  I bought this plant from a nice botanical company in Montana and they advised me to have this epiphyte potted rather than mounted and I can see why.  I put it in a clay pot with large chunks of bark and it really seems to like it that way." By Arne.

F) The orchid, September 20th. The second flower stem is definitely much delayed in its development but here we can see the three buds.

G) Zoom in the see the details of each flower.

I hope you enjoyed the photos. This is a new favorite of ours!