The Devil's Excrement

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Armando Daniel sent these two spectacular pictures of two wonderful Venezuelan species. On the left is a Cattlleya Violacea and on the right a Cattleya Mossiae alba. Nice, aren’t they?

Cattleya Warnerii from Brazil top left. On the right a very nice Cattleya Mossiae, a little past its prime.

Its Laelia Purpurata time, on the left not a very good one, but nice lip. On the right a nice rose one.

Brassavola Little Stars.

Flowering definitely picking up

Above left a first flowering if a new Cattleya Aclandiae, very nice shape, espectacular lip, very promising,m plant is still small. Bunch of  Slc. Hot Pink Lulu

Best flowering so far of this Shomburgkia Thomsoniana, it had never sent up so many flowers, the stem is about 6 feet long.

My Potinara Hoku Gem is back in flower, they last for months!

Above left a very tough one, Cattelya Warneri Alfonso Gregory from Brazil, it has been with me over 18 years, first time it flowers! Go figure! On teh right a fdlower I almost missed a Cattleya Mossiae coerulea from a plant so small, I did not even check it and the flower opened looking away from me

On the left a Venezuelan Cyrtpodium Cristatum. Right, a Dendrobium from Asia, not sure of the name.

Once in a while you see funny bugs in the orchid room

Top left, another nice Cat. Walkeriana Corelua. This one is much nices than the one in the last post, note the lip and the shape how much nicer they are. Top Right: A nice Venezuelan species, Encyclia Diurna, love these little green flowers

This is the first time this hybrid of Slc. Richarfd, Muller and L. Aurea flowers, nice!

Haven’t posted my regular posts recently between the orchid exhibits and the PC where my blog was dying, it has been busy time. But today I did make some time for new pictures.


This Cattleya Violacea is extremely generous. This is a species from Venezuela that is famopus for being difficult. I do have other ones which are slower and don’t flower as much, but this plant is very generous. It flowered in November or so and here it is four months later with six spectacular flowers.

Above left, a Cattleya Walkeriana Manhattan Blue, very bluish form, although the shape is not great. On the right, a Slc. Lulu x Maui Blue or soemthing like that. I love plants with spots.

This weekend was the orchid exhibit of AVO, Asociacion Venezolana de Orquideologia, where hundreds of Venezuelan orchids were exhibited. Venezuela has an amazing variety of orchid species, some of them disappearing with development, but there is also a very active orchid community preserving and propagating them in the laboratories. What you can see at that exhibit is absolutely unique, as only in Venezuela can you see such an incredible variety of orchids. Lighting was not great, but I managed to take some good pictures, which you can see here in the slide show or in still pictures in the Orchid section of this blog. Enjoy!

This weekend was the orchid exhibit of the AVO, Asociacion Venezolana de Orquideas, at a local shopping center called Sambil. It is a good place to have it because lot of people go to Sambil, but it is not a great place to see them or take pictures because the lights are fluorescent and distort colors. Below is a sample of the wonders there, this is a good time to have an exhibit, because lots of the local species are in flower, even if I had very little. I took one plant, shown below and got second place, also deservedly so. I have notes of what everything below is, but will have no time to sort through it till tomorrow, in the meantime enjoy the view!

Above left, Agustin Morales (Nitsuga Orchids) decorated his post with paintings of orchids, you can see a Cattleya Mossiae (Venezuela’s National flower, below a painting of a Cattleya Lueddemanianna. On the right, a Dendrobium Superbum from Asia, which beat my plant in ts category for first place and deservedly so. This plant was spectacular, I could not fit it all in the frame.

A nice single plant of Cattleya Mossiae from Xavier Caballero on the left. On the right, a remarkable Cattleya Mossiae semi-alba which is splashed, owned by Armando Mantellini. A few years ago, not one splashed plant was known, now through breeding of splashed plants with each others, we are seeing more and more.

On the right Paphiopedium Starship Voodoo Magic

Cattleya Violacea which won first place. It was far away and I could not get a goo picture of it. On the right another beautiful Cattleya Violacea. Imagine the one on the left is better!

On the left is my Dendrobium Thyrsiflorum from Asia. I was lucky to get it to flower just in time, the day of the judgeing all bunches were opened and by Sunday, some will closed. Timing was perfect, which shows you need good luck too!
On the right is a Vanda hybrid.

The two plants abobe are Phragmipedium Den Winsar

On the left Cattleya Dayana from Plantio La Orquidea, on the right Epicattleya Renne Marquis

Haven’t posted for a while, between Carnival vacation and few flowers, there has not been much of a chance to take pictures. Few flowers still as conditions have been cooler than usual, which will likely translate into more flowers in a couple of months. Cooler than usual means that temperatures have been below 15 C most nights, rather unusual for Caracas. In fact, in the last eight years, I don’t recall a an eight week period of cool nights like we have had. Above left, a very generous flowering of Cattleya Intermedia from Brazil. On the right, a close up of Shomburgkia Undulata from Venezuela, a very common plant along teh Coast near Caracas and in Aragua state, just a couple of hours drive from my home.

This pretty little thing above left is a recent acquisition Lc. Tokyo Magix x Slc. Tangerine. I acquired this two months ago and it’s supposed to be two years from flowering, but it surprised me with three flowers. The flowers are tiny and so is the plant, on the right I took a picture (a terrible one!) of the plant and next to it I placed a brand new #2 pencil so that people can get an inea of the size of the plant and flowers.

Above left is a Cattleya Jenmanii Coerulea, which is flowring for the second time. I was not impressed the first tome, but this time I know I have a great one, the flower in the middle is not as good but the other two are fantastic. On teh right a Cattleya Gaskellaina.

On the left is a Brassia Datacosta, the flowers are almost half a meter in size from top to bottom. On the right, a huge Gaskelliana is in flower in the orchid room, but I was afraid to move it by myself so I took the picture “in situ”