Monday, July 22, 2013
The One and Only Catasetum: Cycnodes Golden Shower "King" x Mormodes revoluta "Yellow"
We got this plant from the nursery we popped into on a trip to St. Pete FL along with the Maxillaria tenuifolia because it was so interesting looking. I had never noticed an orchid like this before, and had no idea how to take care of it. We did some research and found out that it is an orchid that needs resting. Tons of water and fertilizer during the growing season and basically completely dry during the winter. The plant makes a lot of sugary sap droplets all over the leaves for some reason. When we got it this years growth was about 6-8" tall and the roots for it were sort of gnarled looking not going the inch down into the medium. The plant has never really looked good. We don't really know what it's problem is. The leaves look a little water stressed, and recently a couple of them started turning yellow. We are also always paranoid that it has bugs or something. I'm not sure if it's problem is that most of the roots for the currently growing part never made it down into the medium so it is struggling. It's in a 4" plastic pot that we purchased it in still potted in sphagnum because it seemed to be fitting in there just fine. The roots from the older growths all look great. We don't really know what to do with it, so we just keep watering it and hoping it will get over whatever it's problem is, or at least make it to the resting season. The leaves are supposed to all fall off during the dormant season anyways. The plant is also kind of top heavy and it sort of wiggles around a bit, so maybe the roots tips got damaged before they could get into the moss. We maybe should have put a wad of moss around the base of it where the new roots were hanging out like we do for the other orchids. Maybe we were just idiots on this one! :) Well maybe if the current live growth dies, the old ones might still be able to make a new one next year. This was really kind of disappointing because we were excited about the resting orchids, because they require basically no work for a few months out of the year. We thought maybe catasetums would be our new thing. Maybe not.
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Hi Kelly. I saw your blog and thought I would comment. I bought a similar plant last March in Melbourne FL. It is a Cycnoches Taiwan Gold 'Taiwan Orange'.The leaves have just started to turn yellow and I noticed a flower spike so I will greatly reduce watering until new growth. I assume it will take months to actually flower. I was wondering how your plant is doing. I'm sure they've had a hard time being drug all over the country. Let me know.
ReplyDeleteHi Richard, Thanks for your comment! You're the first commenter which is fun. Our catasetum has finished flowering about a month ago. Just a few days before the Orchid society meeting, so we couldn't show it off. The spike and flowers actually developed at average speed- similar to how long it takes for a Phal to flower- no more than 2 months from starting to spike to flowers. The leaves fell off quickly at the end of summer here. They were all gone before it bloomed. The flowers were really interesting looking, not as yellow as we were expecting based on the name. I guess the plant is doing fine now. It's hard to tell with no leaves. We took it out of the pot just to dry it out and then put it back in. I have been lightly misting it every 1-2 weeks and putting it back in the pot to keep the roots from dying. I guess we'll see how it worked in the spring!
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