My P. caudatum has been in spike for weeks now. The wait is over – the first bud is opening. I’ll be continuing to post pictures to my caudatum Flickrset – if you’re interested, check back in as the season progresses.

It’s easy to forget that when you look at a daisy, you’re looking at the plant’s reproductive organs – the naughty bits. Not so easy to forget about when you look at orchids, though.

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I went to the NH Orchid Society’s 2008 show this morning. Beaucoup fun. It was nice to see one of my favorite genera – Phragmipedium – well represented, and a genus I’m warming to rapidly – Paphiopedilum – with a big hybrid and species presence. I have to admit that when it comes to orchids, I prefer species over hybrids.

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It seemed like one vendor just stepped off the pages of Orchid Fever. He had Paphiopedilum sanderianum and Chinese cymbidiums, both of which figure in the book, and has recently gone through all the assorted fun and paperwork involved with importing the first Phrag. kovachii into the country. I bought a Paph. venustum from him – someday, a sanderianum for me.

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Lots more photos on Flickr – click here to go to the set.

Popped over to my favorite local greenhouse to pick up some Pothos for the phasmids and while I was there took a couple pictures of some hybrid Phragmipediums. They also had some nice bell jars – maybe in a month or two…

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I like carnivorous plants. There’s the man-bites-dog aspect, of course, but there are also all the interesting adaptations that make bug (and frog and mouse and…) eating possible. I grow a few different types – I’ve never had any luck with the canonical carnivore: the Venus Flytrap, but I do have pitcher plants (Nepenthes, Sarracenia and Heliamphora), sundews, pings (butterworts), and utrics (bladderworts).

Heliamphora have a special place in my heart – blame it on George Edward Challenger. I read The Lost World as a kid; a little later when my family was living outside Pittsburgh, PA – I was about ten – the Carnegie Museum or the Pittsburgh Zoological Society (or somebody in Pittsburgh – I can’t find any references on the web) sent an expedition to Auyantepui that got a lot of coverage in the local paper. One of the pictures that sticks in my mind to this day was of a scientist and an enormous clump of helis. For those of you who don’t know from tepuis, click here – they are fascinating mesas in southern Venezuela – sky islands isolated from each other by distance and from the surrounding Gran Sabana by altitude/climate.

With all that as background, a few weeks ago my largest heli, H. neblinae, started sending up an odd looking spike.

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I wasn’t sure what it was – flower spike? Keiki (though I’d never heard of Heliamphora keiki-ing)? I posted a query on a carnivorous plant forum and found out that it was, indeed a flower spike. I suppose I could have waited a week and found out for myself; here’s what happened:

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Notice the very pitcher-like top on the flower scale/sheath – is this a cool plant, or what?

While trying to find some reference to the Pittsburgh expedition, I ran across this:

It was Im Thurns accounts that also attracted British mountaineers Hamish MacInnes, Joe Brown, Don Whillans and Mo Anthonie to Mount Roraima in 1967. They wanted to climb the mountain by a new route and chose ‘the prow’ located at the northern end of the plateau that juts into Guyana. MacInnes’s account can be read in his book Climb to the Lost World. *

Hmm – interlibrary loan time…

I think the blossom will open today – will post pictures as it happens.

8:30 AM

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10:30 AM

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Noon

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2:00 PM, and done

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Another bud – there’s a bigger one that will bloom earlier, but this one had the best light.

…bamboo. Phyllostachys aureosulcata to be precise – a picture of the the new growth – I’m trying to get a grove established in the side yard. Once it’s really going it’ll shade the house from afternoon sun, block headlights as they come around a corner up the road a bit, and act as a windbreak in the winter. Very useful – even before I start harvesting shoots and messing around with the wood.

I crack myself up. I just uploaded a few springtime flower pictures to Flickr; click here to go to my account (or you can use the Flickr badge on the right).

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As always, click to embiggen. All shots taken in the yard – I’m messing with the macro capabilities of my newish camera.