Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Specific Families and Genera => Pleione and Orchidaceae => Topic started by: reifuan on March 28, 2015, 01:36:45 PM
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As per usual, this Taiwanese Calanthe sieboldii is first to flower. My plant has increased from one to three flower spikes. Unfortunately, two of them are malformed, probably due to frost damage at an early stage of development :'(
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Hi Reifuan,
I notice that you haven't had any replies yet. That surprises me a little because Calanthes are getting very popular. At our spring show (Thames Valley Orchid Society end of March), a trader offered these in bud. They were all unnamed hybrids and there were so many shoots in the pot that it looked like a bunch of asparagus. I expect that these come from the house of Anthura, I recognised the pots.
There is just one problem with Calanthe sieboldii and many others: they are not reliably frost hardy. Of course, there are many varieties growing in different places, so conditions will be different for each. Sadly they don't come with individual care labels to tell you what the minimum temperature may be.
I have lost quite a few in earlier years and have since experimented, using different 'climates'. Some grow with my spring flowering pleiones, where it can get down to 0°C on occasion for a very short time. The pleiones don't seem to mind that but the calanthes don't like it much. Others grow with my autumn flowering pleiones (e.g P. praecox), which are kept at a minimum of 5°C. They grow wonderful leaves and multiply rapidly but don't flower much. I shall try something in between next because I really love these.
Ian Butterfield manages to grow calanthes exceptionally well in his pleione greenhouse under the staging. They are huge, with clean leaves and covered in flower spikes. You may think it's too dark under the staging, but his plants get quite a lot of light, because the staging is made of wire mesh and not very crowded. Good luck with yours. :)
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I have several in bud, but they seem to be determined to keep me waiting.
It will be interesting to see how the Anthura "asparagus" does in the hands of mere mortals without the Dutch magic. I bought three last year. The one that looks like sieboldii has doubled in size to four shoots and has huge buds about to open. Both the Kozu hybrids have more than doubled in size, up to eight shoots, but one has four flower spikes, the other none. All were treated the same and sat next to each other, so mixed results for me.
My good old species tricarinata and brevicornu look tiny by comparison, but have a certain charm compared with the cabbages, sorry asparagus!
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all my plants are in bud too, except C. henryi, which had a rot problem and lost the three shoots that were going to produce flower spikes. :(
I agree that they can be a bit fickle, my C. discolor went from 1 to 2 shoots last year but produced no flowers, this year out of four shoots, one has buds. My C. hancockii had two shoots and one flowerspike in 2012 and 2013, 4 shoots and no flowerspikes in 2014, and had 8 fat shoots that were all set to produce flowers this spring. That is, until a rat with a taste for 'asparagus' came along and chewed off all but 2. My C. brevicornu suffered even worse, out of twelve shoots only a small one is left.
The hybrid from Anthura i bought last spring has increased well and has two big flowerspikes just emerging, probably a third one on the way. I'm glad to see it doesn't need the warmth of a greenhouse to perform well.
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Mine have barely started into growth yet apart from Calanthe tricarinata and they are all in flower.
I have had both C.sieboldii and C.reflexa for years and never had a flower on either. I keep them just frost free
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Tony, my experience with Calanthe reflexa is that the thing most likely to stop it flowering is summer heat. My two flower reliably every August unless we have a hot summer when the buds abort. Keep them as cool as possible, shady and damp and pray!
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Steve
thanks for that advice,I will try some shade but I am having difficulty remembering when we had summer heat. I have been keeping them in quite bright light.
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None of my Calanthe ever see the sun, at least not until late afternoon and then only for a little while. They are outside on the north side of my greenhouse all summer and when they sun does come far enough round there are trees to give some shade.
About four years ago, maybe longer, I lost my reflexa flowers to a mini heatwave, since then they have been fine.
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The above comments on Kozu and other hybrids are interesting, as I too have found there to be phenomenal growth on the plants I obtained last year. Whether they flower as well for me remains to be seen....
I do wonder whether the compost used seems to have some relevance to this - previously I have used a reasonably highly organic mix watered regularly and also fed frequently as Jeff Hutchins recommends on his website. But the plants have never thrived, and have certainly never flowed after the first year.
One of several hybrids I obtained last year came from John Amand at Gardening Scotland. It seemed to be in its original pot and when repotting it this week I had to cut the pot off the rootball as the significant mass of roots had distorted the pot: the potting medium inside seemed to be totally bark chips. A couple of plants that I obtained from Jeff earlier in the year seemed to have been repotted into larger pots. The original potting medium again seemed to be bark chips, with a large number of roots growing around the bark mass where the edge of the original pot would have been. However there were also a lot of roots growing into the surrounding compost, which seemed to be a 50:50 mix of perlite and organic matter. Teasing out the rootball to remove all the old compost left no discernible difference between the old and new roots.
I eventually elected to repot the plants using a mixture of the Cypripedium mix that I use (mostly pumice, to give excellent drainage with some moisture retention) and a significant amount of organic material. The eventual mix was about: pumice 30%, perlite 20%, composted bark 20% and coarse bark chips 30%, but I am now beginning to wonder whether this may be too moisture-retentive and could cause rotting of the roots, so should I increase the amount of the bark chips to open up the compost?
Any comments/advice would extremely welcome!
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Hi Peter,
I just came across Ian Butterfield recipe for calanthes, which he grows extremely well. Of course, it is not just the compost that ensures success, but here goes:
Ian's compost for Calanthe
Peat…………………... 6 buckets
Fine bark…………...... 6 buckets
Perlite………..……..... 1 bucket
Vitax Q4………..…..... 8cm pot full
Fish, Blood & Bone.... 7cm pot full
Dolomite Lime……..... 7 cm pot full
This would have to be scaled down a bit for the ordinary grower. Hope it helps. :)
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Thanks for that info Maren, I may incorporate rather more feed into the compost mix.
It's the particle size that intrigues me, I would guess that in Ian's mixture the largest particles would be the perlite, perhaps 4-5mm diameter? The plants that I repotted from what seemed to be almost pure bark were growing in a mix with a particle size of 8-10mm diameter, probably about 30-40% air!
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Hi Peter,
regarding size, it's a toss up between the fine bark particles and the super coarse perlite. Remember both get smaller during the growing year and when being re-potted in early spring, it's all a pretty airless lump of mush.
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Not that I would ever argue with Mr. Butterfield, but a friend of mine who grows excellent Calanthe swears that, like Cypripediums, they dislike being repotted and this should be avoided until absolutely necessary. Very confusing!
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Maren, I'm not sure that these bark chips in the Calanthe pots were going to get smaller anytime soon - they were solid pieces of what looked like pine bark about the size of sugar cubes. I've repotted Cymbidiums after several years in similar bark composts and they haven't degraded much.
As it happens I had a quick chat with Jeff Hutchins at the Harrogate Flower Show today and asked him about the coarse bark. Apparently the hybrid Calanthes are raised in Holland where they are grown under cover and watered on a regular basis by overhead sprinklers so they are kept moist. As the outside area where I keep my larger terrestrials - Cypripedium, Calanthe, etc - during the summer is lightly sprinkled twice a day I'm tempted to use something similar as a basis for the Calanthe compost. The Cyps are already in 90% pumice and I'm thinking of trying 40% coarse bark chips, 40% 8mm pumice, with the remainder being made up of smaller organics to privilege the organic type mix that they seem to prefer. One can only try! ;)
Incidentally Jeff had some lovely, delicately coloured hybrids on the stand today - my collections has increase by two. :-X
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I grow mine in a range of different compost mixes (bark, cocopeat, cocnut husk chips, composted wood chips, supermarket potting mix) with varying moisture retention and drainage. It doesn't seem to make any discernable difference in terms of growth. Some require frequent watering to be kept evenly moist, others are only watered when there are long periods without rain. Another point is that finer organic ingredients like peat decompose quite rapidly, because of the large amount of organic fertilizer I give my plants.
As for repotting; I've never experienced any setbacks afterwards, they seem quite resilient to me. From what I understand from Japanese growers, they can be repotted at any time of the year except summer and early autumn, when they're forming new shoots for the following spring.
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At last my first few are fully open. A tricarinata, a sieboldii, and one of the Anthura hybrids that I took a liking to, but have no idea as to its parentage. More to follow but they just seem to be sitting waiting.
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That is one pretty cabbage.. ;)
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And another cabbage. I was hoping for a little more colour, this is a little too pastel for my liking!
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Are these cabbages actually hardy in C Europe, like the advertising claims?
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I suspect that their hardiness varies, depending on parentage. Best to protect the shoots by giving them a generous winter mulch. However, the leaves on my cabbage have taken no frost damage at all this winter, which cannot be said for my C. sieboldii and C. hancockii.
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Gentlemen,
on my extensive allotments, I have never seen a cabbage that looks like these plants. But most of my asparagus bunches do. ;) ;D ;)
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Cabbage is a term of affection in my family! Not sure that everyone else is using it in the same way. :D
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Currently in flower: Calanthe hancockii. My plant isn't quite so obscenely large as the hancockii×sieboldii hybrids being offered recently, but the flowers are bigger than all other species except C. sieboldii.
It is a bit malodorous, though not intolerably so.
(http://s16.postimg.org/gd23jeeap/20150511_102613_1.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/gd23jeeap/)
(http://s16.postimg.org/p9cvnc4wx/20150511_102815_1.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/p9cvnc4wx/)
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Calanthe's are doing well in our garden. Calanthe bicolor must be discolor (Z26), Calanthe brevicornu hybrid (OBS46), Calanthe mannii (H70), Calanthe sieboldii ((OBS43) and Calanthe tricarinata (H80)
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That is a very impressive clump of C. tricarinata, Herman! Mine has more than a few years to go before it looks anything like that.
Some of the names are incorrect though, your 'brevicornu' is clearly a brevicornu hybrid, possibly with discolor. It seems that lately, a lot of hybrids are being sold as one of their parent species, which bothers me to no end.
C. bicolor is the old name for what is actually the hybrid between C.discolor and C. sieboldii. Having said that; your plant looks exactly like C. discolor from what I can see.
Your C. sieboldii is possibly a hybrid lookalike, but I can't say for certain.
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That is a very impressive clump of C. tricarinata, Herman! Mine has more than a few years to go before it looks anything like that.
Some of the names are incorrect though, your 'brevicornu' is clearly a brevicornu hybrid, possibly with discolor. It seems that lately, a lot of hybrids are being sold as one of their parent species, which bothers me to no end.
C. bicolor is the old name for what is actually the hybrid between C.discolor and C. sieboldii. Having said that; your plant looks exactly like C. discolor from what I can see.
Your C. sieboldii is possibly a hybrid lookalike, but I can't say for certain.
C. tricarinata is planted there (humus rich soil) in 2012. About brevicornu, I bought it at nursery Bergalp in Netherlands, after seeing the flowers I had also doubts. So I will change the name in brevicornu hybrid and C. bicolor must then be discolor. Thank you for the right names.
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I second the comment about the tricarinata, spectacular!
Both the "brevicornu" and "sieboldii" look very much like the Anthura hybrids mentioned elsewhere. It is great that they are making Calanthe more widely available but I share Reifuan's displeasure at the inaccurate naming. Sadly it is even worse with their Cypripediums.
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Calanthe hancockii (H102)
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Hermann, I am most impressed that you can grow these outside. What kind of soil do you have? ph?
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Hermann, I am most impressed that you can grow these outside. What kind of soil do you have? ph?
Maren, our soil is a bit heavy (between sand and clay), I know it is a bit acid but I don't know the PH. I use a lot of compost of Carpinus betulus (shredding and then one winter on a compost heap)
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Ok Herman, that is clearly not C. hancockii. :P
I believe RarePlants offers this species as C. chloroleuca, but I can't find any description of that plant in any flora, just a drawing.
http://www.orchidspecies.com/orphotdir/calchroleuca.jpg (http://www.orchidspecies.com/orphotdir/calchoroleuca.jpg)
The flower on the drawing has a slightly longer spur than your plant and looks a lot like C. griffithii.
Your plant looks more like the recently described C. yaoshanensis
http://www.kib.cas.cn/xwzx/kyjz/201410/W020141018821024987688.jpg (http://www.kib.cas.cn/xwzx/kyjz/201410/W020141018821024987688.jpg)
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/10488166/calanthe-yaoshanensis-sp-nov-orchidaceae-from-northeastern- (https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/10488166/calanthe-yaoshanensis-sp-nov-orchidaceae-from-northeastern-)
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Ok Herman, that is clearly not C. hancockii. :P
I believe RarePlants offers this species as C. chloroleuca, but I can't find any description of that plant in any flora, just a drawing.
http://www.orchidspecies.com/orphotdir/calchroleuca.jpg (http://www.orchidspecies.com/orphotdir/calchoroleuca.jpg)
The flower on the drawing has a slightly longer spur than your plant and looks a lot like C. Grifithii.
Your plant looks more like the recently described C. yaoshanensis
http://www.kib.cas.cn/xwzx/kyjz/201410/W020141018821024987688.jpg (http://www.kib.cas.cn/xwzx/kyjz/201410/W020141018821024987688.jpg)
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/10488166/calanthe-yaoshanensis-sp-nov-orchidaceae-from-northeastern- (https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/10488166/calanthe-yaoshanensis-sp-nov-orchidaceae-from-northeastern-)
Here are some details. So it seems that there are a lot of wrong names among the calanthe sellers. Identification by Reifuan: Calanthe yaoshanensis
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So it seems that there are a lot of wrong names among the calanthe sellers
That's what I was thinking - we often hear of wrongly named plants but it appears that orchids are amongst the worst for this from sellers. :'(
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I do not think that there are too many nurserymen actually growing hardy orchids, year on year, actually increasing the stock. Rather I think there are a lot of people selling on other people's stock within a few months / weeks, often dormant or in the early stages of growth, so that any mistake in naming is passed on across Europe. With respect to Calanthe I think the majority of plants now on sale in Europe are coming from a single source where correct naming is just not considered important. They are being mass produced and, by orchid standards, sold cheaply. From what I have seen at shows and in garden centres not too many people buying them actually care if they are correctly named.
Sadly I am coming to the conclusion that buying any hardy orchid, of any species, which is not in flower is a calculated gamble. The mass produced plants, be they Calanthe, Cypripedium or Dactylorhiza are a total lottery. Even at events such as Gardener's World Live I have come away thinking that not one of the Dactylorhizas, though all labelled as species, were anything other than hybrids.
Pleione seem particularly likely to be misold. At the London Orchid Show the general opinion was that about half of the Pleione on display were incorrectly labelled, and that several of those for sale were imposters. Hookeriana the size of hen's eggs are not hookeriana and albiflora for £20 are not albiflora. The number of Pleione Tongariro masquerading as more expensive varieties on eBay seems to increase every year.
Buying dormant wintergreen tubers is becoming a total lottery, even from reputable traders. I hope this is just due to errors during the long process from flasking to selling, but I am starting to wonder if it is in fact a sign of wild collecting. I have removed a couple of dealers from my trusted list due to these doubts.
Then there are other reasons for these errors, from people swapping labels around at shows, people jumping on the orchid bandwagon who simply don't know what they are selling, incompetence at nurseries, the ongoing confusion over names due to the splitter / lumper issues and of course downright dishonesty on the part of the sellers.
But whatever the reason the current situation is a total mess. :'(
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Steve
I agree about the misnaming. Cyps are just as prone as anything else.
One of the few people who have sold me entirely true to name cyps is Frank Schmidt at floralpin and he propagates his own.
David
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Here are some details. So it seems that there are a lot of wrong names among the calanthe sellers
Your flower has the three sub triangular lamellae that set C. yaoshanensis apart from similar species like C. griffithii and C. fugongensis. So Calanthe yaoshanensis is what it must be then!
This species was first described in 2011, but I've seen pictures of it popping up on forums years before, as an unidentified species. Curious how a plant from China ends up in cultivation in Europe before it even has a name..
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Your flower has the three sub triangular lamellae that set C. yaoshanensis apart from similar species like C. griffithii and C. fugongensis. So Calanthe yaoshanensis is what it must be then!
This species was first described in 2011, but I've seen pictures of it popping up on forums years before, as an unidentified species. Curious how a plant from China ends up in cultivation in Europe before it even has a name..
Thank you for the identification. I bought that plant in 2012 from a person in Netherlands. I know that in the past he bought plants from Chen Yi, maybe is that the explanation.
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People ask me why I am so bothered about the names given to plants?
There are several reasons, but here is evidence of just one. Look at John Evans' excellent photos of the Malvern Show in the Events section. Clearly the Calanthe and Cypripedium are starting to appeal to a whole new group of people, but obviously neither they nor the judges have the knowledge to challenge the names on the plants at purchase. It looks as if most of the Calanthe pictured are relatively new purchases, probably all Anthura cabbages, and I suspect that most of the names are works of fiction. But now they are on the AGS website which means other people will use the pictures as reference points.
I am rather surprised that the "Cypripedium fasciculatum" did not get correctly named as Cypripedium fasciolatum, a very different creature, but this proves my point.
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It looks as if most of the Calanthe pictured are relatively new purchases, probably all Anthura cabbages, and I suspect that most of the names are works of fiction.
http://www.alpinegardensociety.net/discussion/atshows//Malvern+AGS+Show+/19913/?page=7 (http://www.alpinegardensociety.net/discussion/atshows//Malvern+AGS+Show+/19913/?page=7)
Whoever is responsible for labelling all sorts of Calanthe hybrids as Kozu (C. discolor×C. izu-insularis).. I doubt we're ever going to be friends.
The one with the orange/yellow flowers is clearly not Kozu. The pink hybrid has the looks of C. aristulifera , so that isn't Kozu either. The two purple ones do look like they are hybrids involving C. aristulifera, so at least that's correct.
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Hi Everyone
If you ever see show images from AGS shows of plants which are clearly misidentified, please let me know, either by posting to the thread on that site if you are a member, or via this site as I am a member here. I know very little about Calanthe, so as a photographer I can only go by the exhibitors' labels, but if you let me know corrections a) I can update the thread on the website and b) more importantly I can correct the information related to the images before they get added to the AGS Digital Image Library, where they really do get used as reference points. I only found the useful feedback in this thread by accident, but I can now correct those images. Because I maintain that library I care a great deal about accurate identification of the plants shown.
Thanks
Jon
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Calanthes currently in flower:
Calanthe tricarinata; not quite as impressive as Herman's, but it's getting bigger every year, so i'm not complaining
[attach=1]
[attach=2]
Calanthe discolor
[attach=5]
Calanthe hybrid, this one looks a lot like C. discolor in the photo, but it's actually much larger, and has a strong sweet scent, whereas C. discolor only has a faint mushroom smell
[attach=3]
[attach=4]
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Calanthes in currently in flower:
Calanthe tricarinata; not quite as impressive as Herman's, but it's getting bigger every year, so i'm not complaining
Patience is a virtue! Very nice pictures!
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My Calanthe brevicornu isn't looking its most photogenic this year, after first the rodents and later the slugs have been at it.
But with all the hybrids causing confusion, I thought it couldn't hurt to post some more photos of the actual species.
For those who have doubts about the uhh.. 'purebloodedness' of their C. brevicornu; the species is easily distinguished from the hybrids by the length of the spur. As can be seen in the third picture, the spur on this species is little more than a bump between the base of the lateral sepals. The hybrids have a longer spur.
Allthough the majority of Calanthe brevicornu in cultivation are this variety with green and white sepals and petals, there is also one with dark red colouration on the sepals and petals: http://www.orchidspecies.com/calbrevicornu.htm (http://www.orchidspecies.com/calbrevicornu.htm)
this red colour only occurs on the front of the sepals and petals, the back of the sepals and petals is always pale, and therefore, so are the flowerbuds. If your 'brevicornu' has brownish, red or purple buds, it's a hybrid, or something else entirely.
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A real beauty, reifuan - wonderful photos too, of the elegant flowers. 8)
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The £20 garden centre calanthe were now reduced to £10 on Monday. Most abused of course with little idea of what the flowers were like.
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three in flower at the moment
calanthe frimbriata
Calanthe nipponica
Calanthe arcuata
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Calanthe reflexa is fashionably late this year, all this rain isn't helping either.
[attach=1]
[attach=2]
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Calanthe reflexa is fashionably late this year, all this rain isn't helping either.
Looking good though. Better late than never, eh?