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A small growing, yellow flowered orchid from Bhutan and Nepal. I bought five pseudobulbs from Laneside Hardy Orchids when it became available in 2021. I am told that it can be grown
in the same way as Pleione although the bulbs are considerably smaller. In 2019 the species was exhibited at the AGS show, Pershore. I don't have a record of the exhibitor but they provided a useful note beside the exhibit (thank you): "This is an orchid from the mountainous areas of Bhutan and Nepal, but is quite at home in the UK. It has only recently become commercially available from legitimate sources and is a perfect compasnion for Pleione. The compost is a similar mix of bark, moss and perlite, free draining, but crunchy and airy. Like Pleione, the plants go dormant for the winter and are kept beneath the bench where light frost does not bother them as long as they are completely dry. I repot in early spring, expecting growth to resume in late April or May. Once growth starts the plants are fed weekly with Akerne's Rain Mix, (my fertiliser of choice for all my orchids, tropical and hardy). Unlike Pleione the leaves appear first, then flowers during July. I keep them at the sunny end of the greenhouse until after floweringwhen they go outside in dappled sunlight." The International Orchid Species Encyclopedia says: "Found in Xizang province of China, Nepal and the higher eastern Himalayas, Sikkim and Bhutan on moist moss covered rocks in dense mixed forests and on wet roadside banks with scattered scrub at elevations of 1950 to 3650 meters, as a miniature sized, cool to cold growing terrestrial- lithophyte with small compressed, globose-ovoid pseudobulbs enveloped basally by fibrose sheaths and carrying 1 to 2 plicate, distichous, linear to oblong, acuminate, sessile leaves and blooms in the mid-summer on a 4" [10 cm] long, 1 to 3 [rare] flowered inflorescence and drops the leaves in mid September when the plant should be kept dry [just like Pleione] until new growth appears in the late winter to early spring." |
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| 9th July 2021 | ||
