Pacific Orchid Expo 2014 Part 2

    Last time my picture + my random comments ended at Andy's Orchids' beautiful under lights exhibit and now it will start from there.

Another picture of the beautiful Odontoglossum (ugh fine Oncidium) cirrhosum

One view of the exhibit with beautiful Lemboglossums blooming. The Masdevallia on the far bottom left was awarded but unidentified while the Paphiopedilum chiwuanum on the bottom right received an AM, getting a score of 84. Upon further research, it seems like chiwuanum is actually an old synonym for Paph. hirsutissimum. 

Masdevallia species (should have taken picture of tag...)

Another beautiful Masdevallia species.

Masdevallia filaria. Interesting flowers.

Dendrobium cuthbertsonii and assorted miniatures

A lovely jewel orchid Ludisia discolor var. alba with Paph. insigne (I think).

Some Dendrobium victoria-reginae hybrid. The color is prettier in real life.

The beautiful Wardian case filled with pleurothallids

A not-at-all deformed specimen of Masdevallia deformis with tons of large, brilliant flowers.

A beautiful specimen of Masddevallia maxilimae. The orange, tubular flowers are most likely hummingbird pollinated, having blooms perfectly suited for the birds. Additionally, the plant comes from the most hummingbird-rich part of the world: Andean cloud forests.

Close-up ish

Stunning bloom of Dracula. Like most other Dracs, these flowers will wilt if the humidity gets much below 80% so for display they must be kept in this glass case with its own source of fog coming up periodically.

Another view of the case

Masdevallia pallida. I love the white flowers and super thin sepal thread things.

A stunning goldenrod flower of Dracula hirtzii xanthina 'J&L's Gold' AM/AOS (award not given at this show). The plant was huge wit.h several spikes

Interesting leaf texture exhibited by Begonia soli-mutata grown by Hanging Gardens.

Masdevallia angulata also grown by Hanging Gardens

The carnivorous plant display.

I have no clue what this Paphiopedilum malipoense was doing with the pitcher plants. It was the only orchid in the carnivorous plant display and looked pretty awkward.

Paphiopedilum rothschildianum hybrid

One of the "black" Cymbidiums. In real life without flash, the color was closer to the ever-coveted black.

Phalaenopsis hybrid...with decent lighting

And that concludes the display area. I didn't take many pictures in the sales area because 1. My camera ran out of batteries (my phone still worked though) and 2. I was too busy choosing plants.

View over the sales area from the second floor food area.

Wow what a beautiful plant...also a miniature. Ecuagenera always has interesting things like this. Unfortunately, I could not pay $60 for this. 

Another $60 miniature. This was a super miniature, variegated, twisted-leafed Sedirea japonica at Seed Engei.

Long name for a small plant. So nice to see a Leptotes other than L. bicolor! At Gold Coast Orchids.

Never knew Heliamphora hybrids existed at all... The carnivorous plants table had this $100 rare plant available.

The Heliamphora was also in bloom with these quite beautiful and showy white flowers.

Interesting peperomia sold at Andy's Orchids

A specimen sized Odontoglossum (UGH Oncidium) crispum (UGH alexandrae) in The Tiny Jungle. Beautiful enough to be in the display area.

As we left, the fog rolled in from the bay...

I only got five plants and they could all fit in this clay pot with hand for comparison! I got a Masdevallia glomerosa (Ecuagenera), Dryadella cristata (Ecuagenera), Pleurothallis alata (Napa Valley Orchids), Pleurothallis megalops (Hanging Gardens), and Masdevallia wendlandiana (only plant that day I got in bloom from Andy's Orchids). Hopefully I don't get the dreaded "sudden rot" as I have previously experienced with several of the micro-miniature orchids... 

    Note to self: If I take a picture of an orchid, TAKE A PICTURE OF THE TAG. Anyways, until next, enjoy plants and blegh. I will hopefully post sometime on Saturday showcasing everything interesting currently in bloom at my house.  

Pacific Orchid Exposition 2014 Part 1

    Yesterday (2/23/14) I visited the Pacific Orchid Expo with 2 of my friends, just like every year. Upon arrival to the pavilion in Fort Mason, I smelled the unmistakable scent of orchid shows and instantly felt free of tge annoyances from a sucky junior year in high school. My first order of business was to locate my plants that I entered Wednesday evening (thanks dad for driving me!). Not sure if I had won anything, I was quite pleasantly surprised to see my beautiful Phragmipedium Peruflora's Cirila Alca (dalessandroi x kovachii) adorned with ribbons, including best orchid grown by youth (17 and younger) exhibitor, best slipper orchid grown by a novice, and a silver certificate from the Cymbidium Society of America (I still have no clue what this is after searching through the internet). Best of all, the plant received an Award of Merit with 81 points, my first official AOS award!!

Proud parent of a gorgeous plant.

    Anyways, I then walked around the exhibits, taking a bunch of mediocre pictures due to the mostly unfavorable lighting and my poorly cleaned lens. I guess most of this post will be a stream of photos along with my commentary...

Coelogyne species-I-didn't-get-down. This magnificent ball of flowers deservedly got a cultural award.

Close-up of the flower

Aerangis fastuosa. I grow this species too and it is extremely fragrant at night. When the lights are turned off, within 15 minutes a lovely smell fills the air and as soon as the lights return, the smell disappears. A lovely miniature to have.

I believe this is a Sophronitis (or is it Cattleya now?) coccinea. Little guy got a cultural award and some sort of trophy.

Cochlioda species/hybrid

Sedirea japonica - one of the most fragrant orchids ever (day fragrant). It smells sort of like citrusy-ish soap and is extremely strong. The plant is also fairly easy to grow.

Dendrobium Silver Wings - I love it when the name matches the plant so well

Seed Engei's display. A very traditional-looking setup with the samurai orchid Neofinetia falcata that comes in all shapes and sizes including...

...This crazy growth style

Dendrobium monoliforme also grown by Seed Engi in this lovely pot.

Dendrobium Little Atro 'Titan'. Absolutely stunning.

Specimen Dockrilla teretifolia. This plant was at least 5 feet tall and covered with these elegant, airy flowers that look like pure artwork.

Closer pics of the flowers

Orchid Zone brought a beautiful selection of slipper orchids. In this box are micranthum (large light pink pouch in the front), vietnamense (bottom towards left with part of certificate), armeniacum (bright yellow), and many more.

The Paph. vietnamense got an AM, scoring an impressive 85 points.

Some very large Phragmipedium hybrids - not for my indoor growing conditions.

I was thoroughly impressed by the gold spray-painted coast live oak branch with hanging Paph. bellatulums. Amazing and creative display. 

Paph. Susan Booth 'Midnight' x sanderianum 'Hidden Treasure'

Paph. charlesworthii / some hybrid. Love the flower form

What is this super ugly plant? I bet it didn't win a single award and the judges hated it and...

...never mind. This specimen of Phrag. kovachii won best plant in show, tons of trophies and medals, and got an FCC with an amazing score of 90 points. The flower was huge with vivid, solid color. Excellent job Peruflora!

Best miniature in show - Epidendrum guisayanum

Hmmm. Doesn't seem so miniature to me. Think of all the years it took for that tiny plant to grow so huge though.

I love Masdevallias

Dracuvallia Lucifer (Drac. vampira x Masd. veitchiana). Not your typical hybrid. Interesting cross though, with the color of veitchiana with some of vampira's stripes. Unfortunately the flower also has the Dracula's tendency to wilt whenever the humidity gets below middle-of-San-Francisco-fog.

Beautiful Masdevallia hybrid. I see chaparensis somewhere in here.

Pleione formosana. I love the lilac color contrasting with the frilly lip.

Can you say air root? This huge Oerstedella centradenia probably had more roots than stems and leaves combined.

Masdevallia Fraseri. The color is beautiful and from the coccinea parent while the striping and upper sepal being somewhat pressed forward is from the ignea parent. 

Masdeavallia Pixie Snow Leopard. Interesting speckling

Dendrobium spectabile with its crazy looking flowers. The craziest thing is that this is a SPECIES so it naturally occurs in the wild.

My other orchid that I entered: Paph. Hsinying Leopard x (Rafael Garcia Orraca x Nightfire) that is showing a funky little extra sepal thing to the right of the dorsal sepal and the second flower to the left is completely degenerate and I have no idea what's going on. This guy received first ribbon for Maudiae hybrids in the novice category.

Can you say keikis?

Dendrochilum tenellum - I think this plant was also brought in last year by the same exhibitor (Andy's Orchids) and it was equally as amazing, with the lovely grass foliage forming a ball and the golden spikes sticking out.

Cleisocentron gokusingii. Although it wasn't this deeply colored in real life, the orchid did have flowers that were almost true blue. Also in Andy's wonderful display area under lights.

One of my favorite Masdies, glandulosa. Named after the small glands within the flower that produce this lovely scent reminiscent of cloves with a hint of cinnamon. My plant is not nearly as impressive as this one though.

Masdevallia ferrusi. Tiny little plant (see the camera I inadvertently picked up while taking the picture) with these astoundingly beautiful flowers. It also got an AM, scoring 83 points. 

Lovely Dendrobium pendulum.

Masdevallia sp.

Odontoglossum (Now Oncidium?) cirrhosum. Absolutely beautiful with the crisp white color and strong contrasting spots + lip.

    Ok believe it or not but this blog post has exhausted me just from posting pictures and writing captions... Or it might just be because I feel like I need to do homework. Ugh school. Anyways, I will post within the next week with my other pics and some more stuff about the POE!