This week’s WordPress photo challenge is ‘Variations on a theme.’ One of my first thoughts was orchids. It’s a family of flowers that is constantly changing as one plant is crossed with another to produce something a little different. So this is a collage of some orchids I’ve photographed at Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden.
For more information about Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, go to htbg.com.
In Hawaii, plants grow year-round so there is no ‘spring’ where the first new growth sprouts from the ground. But there are still seasons, times when certain plants come into bloom and then seed. This is one of several reasons why I like revisiting Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, north of Hilo. There’s always something new to see by visiting at different times of year.
On my most recent visit, I found this orchid, Zygonisia Cynosure ‘Blue Birds,’ blooming. It is, apparently, about as close as it gets to a blue orchid. It does have a certain ethereal quality about it.
For more information about Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, go to htbg.com.
This Phalaenopsis Minho Princess orchid was one of many varieties of orchid that can be found at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden north of Hilo on the east side of the Big Island. For more information about Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, go to htbg.com.
Orchids have a unique flower structure, which this Phalaenopsis orchid shows off.
They’re bilaterally symmetrical, the left and right halves being mirror images. The column in the center of the flower is a fusion of the male and female parts. They have three petals in an inner whorl and three sepals, usually as big as the petals, in an outer whorl.
The lower petal is the lip on which pollinators land. When the flower is in the budding stage, this lip starts out at the top. In most orchids, as the flower opens, it rotates until the lip is at the bottom, a process called resupination. Not all orchids do this. Some remain in the original upside down position and some rotate a full circle until they’re back where they started.
A lot of the plants, fish, and birds that I see on the Big Island are new to me, but I find it satisfying to identify them. It’s often not straightforward. Striking colors or patterns that I think will be easy to place can often prove elusive. Juvenile birds and fish might look nothing like their parents. Other times, a mostly undistinguished look might pop up first in my search.
Orchids are a big challenge since there are numerous hybrids. I’m pretty confident this is Aliceara Pacific Nova not just because it matches photos online, but also because there was a tag at the base of the plant, a useful search tip I’m happy to pass along here.
As with most of my orchid photos, I include the words ‘I think’ when it comes to talking about what it is. I think this is a Doritaenopsis hybrid. Doritaenopsis orchids are a cross of Phaleanopsis and Doritis orchids, in this case Champion Lightning and Chianxen Magpie. This one was at Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden.
For more information about Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, go to htbg.com.
I’m pretty sure this is an oncidium orchid, though I’m not sure which one. There are 400 or so to choose from and I haven’t yet been able to identify it positively. I love seeing the different orchids, but haven’t started down the slippery slope of trying to grow them – yet!
This one was at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden north of Hilo on the east side of the Big Island. For more information about Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, go to htbg.com.
Apparently, there are around 8 billion different kinds of orchid. That, of course, doesn’t include hybrids. In my efforts to identify this flower, I tried all kinds of descriptions in my online search engine – ‘white orchid, purple spots,’ ‘epiphyte orchid, white with purple,’ ‘white and purple epiphyte.”
No matter what I tried I didn’t see anything that matched. I rifled through books at the library without success. Finally, I found a book, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Orchids edited by Alec Pridgeon, that also failed to solve my problem. But the photos in the book did seem to indicate that this flower might be an oncidium orchid.
So I searched for ‘oncidium orchid, white with purple spots’ and voila, there it was. Of course, this being orchids, some photos were identified as ‘White Wonderland.’ Others referred to it as ‘Aliceara Winter Wonderland “White Fairy.”’ I plumped for ‘Degarmoara Winter Wonderland “White Fairy”’ because that appeared to be the more numerous choice. In the world of orchids, there seem to be varying opinions as to which plant fits in which species.
Now the only question is, how did this orchid come to be growing deep in the branches of a tangerine tree?
Graham's Island 