Not your grandma's Phalaenopsis

[Roberta]

I debated where to put this... if I chose Phalaenopsis, I'd have to put the parent species in one place and the primary hybrid in another. If I put them in Vandaceous-Other, they all would fit nicely, except that with reclassification they're all Phalaenopsis. So... here we are. Both parents, and the primary hybrid are all in bloom. Two monotypic genera (Hygrochilus and Sedirea) got lumped into Phalaenopsis, monotypic genera do tend to encounter that fate.

We have Sedirea japonica (now Phalanopsis japonica), a small, fragrant species. Growth habit rather Vanda-like. And we have Hygrochilus (Vandopsis) parishii (now Phalaenopsis hygrochila) a rather large (and fragrant) species with monster roots (see Root Porn page 45, 6-19-2023) No medium at all (the part that was in bark rotted away, the roots are very happy in the open air) So that's rather Vanda-like. And a photo with the two species together, so you can see relative size. For scale, the Hygrochilus parishii is in, or rather on, an 8 inch (20 cm) basket.