Orchid of the day: Cychnoches warscewiczii

Cychnoches warscewiczii

Greetings everyone. It has been a quiet November, not because we ran out of orchids to share, rather my 'orchid-guy' was under the weather and we had to make sure everyone was healthy and happy again. Arne is back and the orchids are being cared with love, once again.  Enough said.

Here is a new orchid in our collection, Cycnoches warscewiczii. I found it a rather odd looking specimen but its different and 'interesting'. Below is a nice introduction that Arne put together, I hope you will find it as interesting as I do.

"Cycnoches warscewiczii is found in Colombia as a warm to hot growing epiphyte (sometimes saprophyte) that loves lots of water, rain, nutrients and sun during the growing season.  When the huge pseudobulb is maturing in mid fall it produces two-five large flowers and wants no water for six months or so.  The flowers are non-resupinate, which means that they are upside-down.  Even more strange is that Cycnoches is one of the few genera that carry both male and female flowers.  The flowers shown here are male flowers and they are large, up to 5 inches (12.5 – 13 cm).  The somewhat funny-looking female flowers look like they are having helmets and develop only on very large and old plants because only a large plant can supply nutrients to and carry the seed capsules.  The other well-known genus that also produce both male and female flowers is Catasetum.

A) October 1st.

Finally, Cyc. warscewiczii and chlorochilon carry the largest flowers in the genus and are both known to emit a strong pleasant fragrance.  As we all know, when it comes to scents and taste, we all have our opinions.  Whatever scent Cyc. warscewiczii is supposed to emit, to me it only is reminiscent of some very synthetic candy aroma." Arne.

B) Two flower buds upclose.

C) Peculiar looking orchid buds.

D) By late October, both flowers were opening up.

E) Our upside down flowers.

F) A concluding photo of this interesting Cychnoches warscewiczii flower.

Thanks for coming back to my blog and I hope you have enjoyed this post. I plan to get back to me regular weekly posting next week.

Until then, have a great week and happy First Advent.