December blooms

I always get a nice flush of blooms in December.

I get plants I would consider sharing at my club meeting or a show. Of course, it's the holiday season so there are no regular meetings or shows. So I will share here. Please indulge me.


The tropical orange cattleya had no real name tag when I acquired it. It is labeled Bonsai Jim. I like the name and it suggests the history of the plant (it was probably a gift from Jim in the local Bonsai club). It will be more open in a day or two but the color was good and I had my camera out. The flowers are about 5-6" across.


The purple spray of orchids is an Epi Cat.
It is "Viola Susan" or something (another tag mishap). There are about 10 blossoms on this single inflorescence. There is another inflorescence coming on with another 8 blossoms or so.

















This is the one that prompted me to post. Last year, it was a very short yellow spray of flowers. This year, it bloomed orange on a longer inflorescence. I thought the buds were "blasting" (dying on the stem) because of the darker color and I only realized this weekend that it is happy and going gangbusters. The flowers are tiny. What you see here are maybe 30 blossoms on a 4" stem. The individual blossoms are about the size of a pencil eraser (maybe smaller). Pretty cool. Sorry, my camera doesn't get in closer than this. This one is a "species" and has a definate name: Liparis grossa.

Orchids are fun and not that difficult to grow.