My Galeopetalum Starburst Parkside has bloomed!

Hello, my dear readers!

I am a bit late in posting because life has gotten in the way, but I'm happy to report that my Galeopetalum Starburst Parkside has bloomed. The first bud opened up on February 10th and since then, the remaining seven have completely opened up. Every morning when I open my office door, it smells so good because of the scent that the flowers provide.

One thing that I noticed when the buds were starting to open up, was the resemblance to Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors.  Can you hear it saying "Feed Me, Seymour?

Audrey II as a baby plant

There are a lot of pretty orchids out there, but I think this one is one of my favorites currently in my collection.  The coloration is unique with the purple lines/stripes on the leaves against the green background which makes for a striking presentation.  When the blooms fully opened, I looked at them a bit more closely and the tip of the anther cap looks like a little pig nose, which I thought was cute.

Structure of an orchid flower for reference

So, what exactly is this orchid?  Well, it's a hybrid of two different species that was created by crossing Galeottia fimbriata and Zygopetalum Jumpin' Jack.  This particular orchid was registered with the Royal Horticulture Society in 2009 by Parkside Orchid Nursery.  

If you'd like to see the genealogy of this orchid and how it came to be, click on over to this link:

https://orchidroots.com/display/summary/orchidaceae/100917416/

I haven't really dug deep into the process of cross breeding flowers to create a new flower.  That is waaay above my knowledge skill set right now.  I'm just happy with how they look and smell when they are in bloom and that's good enough for me 😀  I expect these blooms to last at least two to three months, so I get to adore them every day for a while.

Meanwhile in other news, I have seven other orchids currently in bloom at this time.  Some of them have been in bloom since I purchased them from the grower in Norfolk Virigina at the beginning of January and a few even longer than that.  I have new growth on my Cycnoches The Grinch "Big Spot," new growth on my Stenorrhynchos speciosum and new growth on my Dendrobrium macrophyllum v. Ternatense orchid.  (Links will take you to the line on my Orchid inventory spreadsheet for that particular orchid.)

My Cycnoches the Grinch Big Spot is a totally new type of plant for me.  When I brought it home from Norfolk, it didn't keep its flowers long.  I believe that it was a combination of the flowers were coming to the end of their bloom cycle as well as transport shock.  What drew me to this particular orchid is the way that the flower blooms looked like the blooms on a tiger lily.  From what I was researching, once the blooms fall, the plant goes into dormancy for a couple of months before it starts sending out new growth and during dormancy, you are supposed to reduce the water to basically not water it as it is supposed to pull the moisture from its pseudobulb and to only mist the pseudobulb very infrequently, basically don't water the roots is what I gathered until new growth appeared.  Well, the dormant period didn't last long at all, because it put out new growth rather quickly, so that's been fun to watch.  Once I noticed new growth, I went ahead and repotted it from the tiny nursery pot it was in.

The papery looking material on the pseudobulb is called the sheath.  It's a protective layer that covers the developing spike or new growth.  As the new growth matures, the sheath dries out and peels away.  You can see the new growth in the foreground.  I documented the new growth on my spreadsheet on February 20th but the new growth is a bit older than that by a week or so.  I'll keep you updated when it blooms!

My orchid research has sort of "stalled" for now but not because I've hit a roadblock with the research itself, it's more that life has been a bit busy and I have been jumping around with reading things about orchids and not finding the time to focus on the specific time period that I'm currently on which is the 1st Han Dynasty in Ancient China.  My attention span has been a bit like a squirrel lately.  I did read some fascinating information about the vanilla orchid, Vanilla planifolia, which is where our flavoring comes from (not the synthetic stuff) for our cakes and pastries.  I hope report on my findings in the near future as my orchid research progresses.  I had intended on going to an SCA event called Kingdom Arts & Sciences Festival this year to have an open display on my orchid research, but time got away from me and I haven't put anything together that's cohesive enough to present.  Sure, I have words in my blog, but I would feel better if I had it all together and presented like, I don't know, a school report of sorts.  There is always next year though.