Bloom Event - Prosthechea chondylobulbon

I'm losing track of all these name changes. If you google for Prosthechea chondylobulbon you get taken to the IOSPE entry for Anacheilium chondylobulbon. I give up ! At any rate, this species is, at least on paper, a cool grower. As any casual reader of this blog will soon realize, my growroom is anything but cool with temperatures more suited to keeping Phalaenopsis and Vanda happy. This species does seem to have quite a wide distribution across Central and South America so I would expect it to be quite adaptable as a potted plant.

It is, at least compared to the other Prosthechea species I grow, quite tall and slender and frankly has relatively few flowers for the size of the plant which are of a similar size to P. cochleata. Having said that, it is an elegant and attractive flower.

As you can see, it is a typical cockleshell form with a very nice detail on the uppermost held lip (properly the flowers are termed non-resupinate) and are actually the right way up. The flowers have a honeyed fragrance which to my nose is very unpleasant (and reminds me of P. Green Hornet). To others I've no doubt the flowers are deliciously fragrant. At any rate, I'd prefer even an unpleasant fragrance to no fragrance at all.

Slightly unfortunately, the flowers are held at an angle such that they are quite difficult to see into as the lip actually points forward so I had to get almost under the flower to take the photo. There are six flowers in total on the spike.

The plant has two lead growths but the other is smaller than this one and hasn't flowered yet. There is a new growth coming up so maybe this time. As well as being tall and slender there is quite a length of rhizome between the pseudobulbs (I'm almost tempted to call them canes as I would a Dendrobium); consequently it will soon climb out of its pot on both sides. I got it from Burnham Nurseries (link to the right) from one of their special lists (they publish one every Christmas) and I haven't seen it for sale since. It 'sulked' for quite a while after I got it. Many orchids sulk while they are settling in; having said that, some of the most notorious sulkers settle in fine while some of the so-called 'easy' species and hybrids take years to settle down. You can never tell. This plant is now over its sulking period and is growing nicely, making canes of a similar size to the previous years or even a little larger. I'm rather dreading having to disturb it to pot it on as I imagine it will sulk again, then.