Tiny Purple Orchids

Although the flowers are tiny, this profuse mass of epiphytic orchids made a dazzling appearance this weekend! I remember this particular cascade "hitched" alongside a bird's nest fern that we bought some years back and mounted on a mango tree in the fern garden. Little did we know it will bloom this profusely! I don't even know what they are called, but I just wanted to post it right away even without properly identifying it.

An Assortment of Orchids

A lot of friends have been giving me orchids for the last months and we've slowly been increasing our variety. I'm no expert in it, and in fact, we hardly take care of them; at least not in the way I hear how others fuss no end about their orchids.

The beautifully-hued flowers on the left is a Dove Orchid (Dendrobium), practically a maintenance-free plant that generously flowers every so often.

 The Scorpion Orchid (Arachnis, above left) are hardy orchids whose flowers last long while the stunning purple Vanda (above right) is just the first among the new type that we are collecting.

Cattleya

What else is there to say about cattleyas that have not yet been written nor published? They are among the most fascinating plants to watch: the dazzling colors, the flowers' velutinous textures, the seemingly random yet predictable shapes, and in the case of cattleyas, a gentle fragrance that is unmistakably its own.

The truth is I'm not even as passionate of orchids as I am of ferns and aroids, but lately, I've been slowly getting hooked.

Flowering Epiphytic Orchids

 It's been more than two years since we've planted epiphytes on the mango trees and this season, two plants whose names I don't even know started to bloom! Nothing beats the immense pleasure of being rewarded with a plant's affirmation that you have taken cared of it well, that it gets itself acclimatized in its new home and starts to flourish and reproduce. Gardening wild plants is tricky and requires a long time, it could never be said enough. But all efforts will pay off once it does thrive, and these two do so very well!

This one on the right, too started to have these minute, pinkish-white blooms this season too. The plant started to adjust quite soon after we planted it but I did not even know that it will start to flower, enchantingly even.


Postscript: I referred the photos to knowledgeable experts via Our Philippine Trees and learned that the orchid on the top and above is called Pinalia polyura while the one on the right is from the Appendicula family. Thanks, Patrick!

Fire Orchid

Still in bloom for some weeks now is the Fire Orchid (Renanthera philippinensis), an indigenous bloom with an arrestingly-red color. Native to our forests, Renantheras come in varied colors and patterns elsewhere but it's only here in the country that it blushes this vividly.

The numerous blooms just before it opens

Renanthera detail

The Many Shades of Purple

Spathoglottis plicata

Purple has many shades and a lot of them are named after flowers: "lilac," "mauve," even "violet" is named after a bloom. But hardly any of the names are from tropical plants, when in fact there is a bigger palette of colors in warm climate flora.

Pink Quill Bromeliad/Tillandsia cyanea

This month alone, four plants: a ground orchid (above) two bromeliads (left and bottom) and a flowering vine (below) are making the gardens more mesmerizing with their gentle purple blush. Cool colors are not too common in a tropical garden and they always give an interesting contrast to the warm oranges and bright yellows. In my experience, purple-hued flowers always command a second look, and psychologically calms rather than excites. It is a color that quiets me down, and causes me to be introspective.

The orchid on top is a Spathoglottis species, a low-growing terrestrial that we have begun propagating this year. Just like typical orchids, it had seeds like dust falling off its dried flowers. This one is particularly prolific this year; flowering continuously already for several weeks.


The tiny flower above is of a pink-bract bromeliad from the Tillandsia family. They're best grown potted because of its small size.


The flowering vine below is the infamous garlic vine, pretty to look at but the leaves and the flowers smell like, uh, garlic. At least, they only smell when you pick them, so they're best left high up on a trellis.



A Neoregelia bromeliad (bottom) has mauve-colored leaves when young then changes to stripes with mauve blotches as they mature. This particular one has miniscule flowers, still mauve, in the center of the rosette.

Garlic Vine/Pachyptera alliacea

Neoregelia variety