Friday, January 16, 2009

Stanhopea Posadarum












This beautiful stanhopea orchid is a newcomer into stanhopea world – it’s only recently been discovered in Colombia and as far as I know two clones of stanhopea Posadarum currently in existence. I have both of them and this one the first one that flowered in my collection.
I am not new to stanhopea cultivation and seen many rare stanhopea plants, but even then was surprised by Posadarum’s sheer bold beauty, primeval energy , spectacular and fascinating appearance and magical scented flowers. There is nothing modest about Posadarum – this is the stanhopea with “an attitude”!

Its started sending four flower spikes about 3 weeks ago and gradually, as they were maturing I could see that each spike had 8 (eight !) flowers. As the flowers were growing on the spike, they started changing their color – from dark to pale green to light then dark yellow. When flowers started opening up early this week, Posadarum revealed its beauty – rich dark orange with lighter orange and dark velvety burgundy spots. The flowers appear delicate, but actually quite fleshy and waxy. The scent - lemon sherbet – very strong, citrusy with slight butter undertones and lingers around for a long time.

I am absolutely delighted having privilege of witnessing this new, rare and unusual stanhopea, looking forward seeing more flowers as they maturing and learning more about this new variety.






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