Cattleya lawrenceana in situ.

[Jan Pahl]

I received this photo last week.

It is often said, that C. lawrenceana on tepuy land often grow on small shrubs and trees inside vegetation “dots” surrounded by big boulders and creeks. In this area lawrenceana is also found growing directly on the boulders or even the walls of tepuys (but not on the top of those table mountains)

Even if it rains a lot and wen is not raining humidity still remains high, vegetation on that area have the tendency of not be to much tall with exceptions of course. Tepuy land is mainly composed of degraded silicate rocks (Sand) that not retains to much soil, so the area is mainly very open Savanna, with scattered forest growing mainly following creek and rivers, and of course areas that for some reason retain more soil have more large forests.

In this area both jenmanii and lawrenceana cohabits being lawrenceana more common. Normally both species aren’t found in the same location, for example jenmanii don’t like to grow directly on shrubs, so that possibly constitutes a clue of why if both are also possible to find in more tall trees, rocks walls and boulders, but they normally don’t share the same spot or even the same area, obviously here applies not well now ecological preferences. Lawrenceana also grows at higher places than jenmanii, and curiously also at lower altitudes, the later on some (not all) river forests that start on tepuy land and ends on Orinoco River.

Armando Mantellini, a friend of mine and owner of “Cerroverde” orchid nursery told me how he found the only know “concolor” of this species. It was on a job field trip (he is engineer) to that zone. To reach that spot he traveled on a jeep without breaks owned by catholic missionaries (the only car in miles) through the savanna until reach the small village near the Tepys were he had to give some technical support. There he had to sleep in a hut with a hard bed without mattresses surrounded by night noises that with Light resulted to be dozens of crawling cockroaches the size of a fist, them the next days he spend there, he simply pass the night outside the hut in the open ""sleeping"" in a hammock.

Local Indians were so grateful with his technical assistance, that as a gift they lead him in to a expedition in to the boulders area. The expedition was quite rough since locals simply jumped through the Boulders wile Armando had to cross and follow them on the land between the boulders, but the reward was high, Indians led him to a place were lawrenceana colonies thrived on the boulders, an them he collected few of the many plants thriving there and few months later at Caracas city, he had the surprise to see that one of them was pink instead of rose-violet, and didind’t have the normal disk on the lip . He was so surprised that he believed that the plant actually had some sort of stress and for that reason the odd look, but lucky he wasn't right and next year the plant bloomed exactly alike.

The plant (as many conocolors inside unifoliate Cattleyas) have a progeny that could be concolor or could be alba... concolor is a partially “masking” gene, so is no doubt that its somehow related with alba at least in some phenotype cases. This way lawrenceana had the first alba of the species on cultivation.

The species also have coeruleas, 2 of them to be precise and only one of them being reproduced if I am well informed. Lawrenceana have one of the most beautiful blue tones among Cattleyas and relatives, it have nothing to envy other blue forms like Guarianthe bowringiana on that matter. I am very grateful with Armando, he saved the "Aulisi" cultivar from a sure dead, and them he was the first to self that plant. In fact, all blue lawrenceanas in the planet are descendants of that cultivar Armando saved, I even recall the time I first saw that plant in flower at his private collection, it was a tiny almost dying little plant with only one flower, but what a flower it was!!!.. I was simply drooling staring to that plant.

I have to quote here that alba, concolor and coerulea inside lawrenceana have somehow "dwarf" to more compact habit and could produce less flowers than "types", that is 100% normal on those plants. Sometimes genetic mutations that affects flower color, also affects plant behaviour, that happens very often inside Cattleya alliance.

Even if the species don’t vary a lot, it have other variations specially on how dark or big a flower could be, and aquinations (dark flares on the petals). Normally lawrenceanas can reach 6-7 flowers per inflorescence, but time by time few “multifloras” are found that could reach a dozen flowers or even more than that.

The species have a vigorous growing habit but have the reputation of being somehow difficult, well in that matter lawrenceanas normally take some time to fully adapt to new environments, so is better to put it in a place, for example a xaxim board were the plant can simple grow for years, and left them without any disturbance. Also the species need like lueddemanniana plenty of light even full sun to flower well, and wen repoting is necessary, it have to be done wen the plant is visually growing, never on dormancy. The rest is equal to any other Cattleya.

The species also sometimes form a natural hybrid with jenmanii, those plants are like small flowered somehow atypical jenmaniis, dark with even darker lips with almost no yellow on it, and without any noticeable scent at all...also the vegetative "look" resembles more to "type" unifoliates than unifoliates as lawrenceana, maxima or lueddemanniana. Enrique Graf, a very well known collector of orchid and also owner of “Plantío la Orquídea", told me that this unusual hybrid is found on the road to “Ikabarú” were legal and illegal mining takes place. It grows on small boundary colonies were jenmanii land is at some moment "substituted" by lawrenceana land, but the hybrid even if it forms colonies, is still unusual to see. Some people even think that this natural hybrid not necessarily is a natural hybrid at all since resembles more jenmanii than lawrenceana, them could be a new 3rd species for the area, but nothing is sure about that since introgression colonies by genetic drift can produce in just few generations plants that not resembles f1 hybrids made on nurseries.... them more wild plants on cultivation are needed to see how really this possible hybrid behaves.

By the way, sorry for my English
Jan

[Swamper]

Great story Jan thank you. beautiful flower and your english is pretty darn good too.

[alevan]

Thanks Jan,
interesting and instructive post (as usual)

Alessandro

[Tindomul]

Wow, nice. Beautiful flowers. That blue is so soothing.
Thanks for the story, your friend lived quite an adventure.

[ChrisFL]

Jan, you are a wealth of knowledge. Thank you for your posts. They are a real asset to the Cattleya species community.

Lawrenceana is my absolute favorite unifoliate Cattleya and I have long dreamed of buying a coerulea seedling from Mantellini. Unfortunately, the finances never agree with me.

[kinknstein]

No apologies needed on the english, it is actually quite good. It was a very informative read!!

[lostonthebeach]

Thanks for the information. Great post !!

[Cookiemonster]

Jan this is the first time in my life I see the C. Lawrenceana Concolor- I have the typical type but this is something far more beautiful ( I am biased towards albas and concolor types)

Thank you for sharing your story, I think good karma comes around- I think after the flying cockroaches I dont know he was able to stay, must be very tolerant of bugs!
But good things come to those who wait and he got a wonderful surprise!

It is amazing that we are still able to find such beautiful flowers hidden. I wonder what else might be found in years to come!

[Jan Pahl]

Originally Posted by ChrisFL

Jan, you are a wealth of knowledge. Thank you for your posts. They are a real asset to the Cattleya species community.

Lawrenceana is my absolute favorite unifoliate Cattleya and I have long dreamed of buying a coerulea seedling from Mantellini. Unfortunately, the finances never agree with me.

I took the photo of the concolor plant, but isn't mine, is from Armando collection. I'm planing to buy it some day, but step, by step, I don't have enough space and good plants are always little investments and my actual "priorities" for the small space I have are lueddemnnianas, labiata complex and coeruleas of any kind. I love all Cattleya relatives with no exception, but wen space is scarce...well, thanks God I always have other friends collections always open to receive this Cattleya lover.

Apart from "type" lawrenceana, what I have is the coerulea, It have something like 8 years with me and since 2-3 yeas or so it have flowering size, but since I had to change my colection from 4 different locations in less than 4 years, the plant is still reluctant to flower, If this year the plant give me flowers, I will share It with the group...but ho knows, lawrenceanas don't like nothing to be moved from one place to the other, and some of them even takes even 2 or more years to adapt well.

Lets see this year.

[Jan Pahl]

thanks everyone for the kind words.

Known and share this "knowledge" of each species for me and for many others is equal to love it more, understand it more inside collections, and avoid all this lack of good references that is reflected even inside literature. The point here is always put in question what we previously think we know, and never say I know enough from any particular subject... their is always something new to learn. One last thing is please never take my words for granted. Question each block of information and seek more to understand.

Collect species have its many rewards for sure. Species are the reflexion of what nature can gif us with just a minimal intervention of human hands. They are beautiful outside, and beautiful inside for sure.