Here is an iteresting link that I found about a special orchid. The christmas orchid. Now its special to me because I just remembered that Colombia's(the country in which I was born) national flower is this orchid.
The flower is Cattleya trianae, and is commonly known as the christmas orchid. Apparently it is only found in the Colombian Andes, and is currently endangered. It was described in 1860 but I can't find by whom. Also it is known as La Flor de Mayo, or may flower in Colombia.
This is an attempt to post a photo from my gallery of one of the palnts that I purchased from Mrs de Ospina in colombia in 1969. The two plants flower at different times and look different. Is this plant correctly labelled as Cattleya trianae? Anybody know?
Eureka! dorothy it worked. Sorry guys to post "private" messages on the board but I struggled to attach a thumbnail and Dorothy has kindly told me how to do it/ so enjoy my photo of Cattleya trianae.
It is a lovely flower. I hope more lab or farm would flask it and growers produce it en masse for collectors to get a hold of them and care for them...endangered orchids are found in homes nowadays to ensure its survival. I specifically choose those orchids in my collection...Reforestation and growing population produce real estates that have no inhabitants in it... the rich just want to buy lands for their insane purposes; Manhattan is a tiny island and yet they are building more high rised monoliths= even the everglades is being developed into homes that no ones even buying...a sad state our world is coming into
I have seen 21 named variations of this plant and there are 65 awarded plants by the AOS with 65 clonal names.
They are readily available in the US in several color varieties. Large specimen plants are hard to find but young plants can be purchsed at a reasonable cost.
They always bloom around Christmas or early January in Florida