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!