New Photos

A small selection of flowers wild and cultivated

An Orchid!

I kid you not

There was considerable excitement out on the terrace a couple of days ago, because The Squeeze had noticed two very definite flower spikes emerging from a plant that has mostly just sat there for the past couple of years. At first glance I thought it might possibly be Chincherinchee (Ornithogalum thyrsoides) despite the darkish hue of the unopened buds.

A cluster of dark, oval flower buds on a short stem surrounded by long, strappy green leaves

Mystery orchid flower spike

On closer inspection, the excitement grew even more, er, excited. I’m pretty sure it is a Cymbidium orchid.

Swollen leaf bases forming a pseudobulb

Pseudobulb at the leaf base

The giveaway is the pseudobulb at the base of the leaves. That’s pretty much diagnostic of Cymbidiums. Where did it come from? I vaguely remember picking up something with strappy leaves from outside one of the big garbage dumpsters a few years ago, in the hope that it might be some kind of bulb. It has sat there all this while, doing nothing but, I presume, growing some new leaves and thriving on our specific form of benign neglect, including a lot of rain this winter. I’ve brought it under cover, to dry out a bit, before bringing it inside to enjoy up close. Since then, a thiurd spike has appeared. Joy!

More later, when the flowers open.

Filed under | General |

Webmentions

Webmentions allow conversations across the web, based on a web standard. They are a powerful building block for the decentralized social web.

If you write something on your own site that links to this post, you can send me a Webmention by putting your post's URL in here:

Comments

I very much regret that Russian spammers have made my comment system unusable. If you want to email me a comment, it is easy enough to find the address and I will be happy to do the needful behind the scenes. Webmentions remain available (for now).