Saturday, July 09, 2011

Cymbidiums (cymbidia?) are growing nicely in full sun now. Currently feeding with 30:10:10 and occasional Epson salts, both at about 1/2 teaspoon per 1.5 gallon. This is less than 1/4 strength for the orchid food. It's weakly but more like every-other-daily instead of weekly, for the ones in full sun. The leaves are that nice light green that websites talk about being ideal for cymbidium and some other orchids.

Miltassia or something similar, I think. It's interesting, most of the oncidium intergerics have similar pseudobulbs and leaves, just different flowers. Miltassia is intergeneric Miltonium or Miltoniopsis, with Brassia. Other than the flower, the plant looks like Oncidium or Odontoglossum - completely different genera.

7/16/11 From an orchidtalk discussion, this is a Banfieldara.  From a RHS forum, some Balfieldara are:

BANFIELDARA = ADA x BRASSIA X ODONTOGLOSSUM x
> ONCIDIUM
>
> BANFIELDARA Gilded Tower =
> = Adaglossum Summit (Odontoglossum x Ada) x
> Brassidium Gilded Urchin (Brassia x Oncidium)
>
> BANFIELDARA = ADA x BRASSIA X ODONTOGLOSSUM
>
> BANFIELDARA Gold Star =
> Brassada Memoria Bert Field (Ada x Brassia) x
> Odontoglossum Yellowstone Basin

Nice looking plant, view of the plant as well as the flowers. I like looking at the entire plant. Photos with just the flowers don't tell me as much.

Yellow Oncidium. It grows so easily. It bloomed once, and never since. It's now in full sun, resulting in sunburn, but also the new growth is that light apple-green that is sought for many orchids. Maybe that's what's needed to get it to bloom. Better get sun while it can, it's already July.

On Epson Salts - It's not clear that they are helpful. Some people think they help the plants grow faster, assuming there is no other source of Magnesium. "in an experiment the use of Epsom salts brought seedlings to maturity and flowering faster than those which were not provided with magnesium sulfate in the form of Epsom salts". The amount is given as ranging from one teaspoon per gallon with every watering, to 1 tablespoon per gallon, 4 times per year. I've rarely been using them, and at the low rate of one half teaspoon per gallon.

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