after a hard week

[Waira]

Thank you my friends, it's my pleasure to share with you! Stick, I'm happy it provides some distraction for your constant pains,..... I could spend days blowing this thread with all the pics I have,... ... I'll look for some of the Gongora tricolor I used to have, that one was truly stunning.. it looked like something a Klingon would fly around in! Also, other members of the Stanhopinae family, which is arguably my favorite,... Cirrhaea is incredible for the way the petioles contort to present the flowers,.. they look like a rt piece, or mobile! And of course, the Stanhopea's, like in my avatar.... Hec', you are spot-on right mate, orchids are an addiction! And no other family of flowers on earth do what they do to get pollinated,.. none of them have free floating pollen, all are in "gel packs" of some sort, and so must be moved physically by some carrier... it's the sheer diversity and bizarreness of how this gets done that floors me time and again! Color, smell, often as not play no role; some to this day have unknown pollinators... weird associations like a cymbidium in Japan, that smells like a enemy wasp, will get pollinated by native bees when they literally attack the flower! A similar method in an Oncidium(?), is marked/colored and moves in the breeze in a way that infuriates certain bee /wasp species to attack it,... others make "traps" like the Lady slippers, or especially Coryanthes, the Bucket orchids... the lip on them is shaped into a bucket, and above is literally a faucet glad that drips slowly to fill it, I shit you not! Bugs come for the smell, slip and fall in,.. only way out is through crawling along a specific path that forces the pollen sacs onto them (they have a sticky pad at the base), when they get free they fall for the same trick again, and on the same path out, there's a collection structure that snags the pollen sacs off the bug,... I have a couple fly mimic Trichoceros spp. whose flowers look and apparently, smell like females, and in the act of mating, get pollination done! .... Those sticker Bulbo's mentioned before, they want flies, not bees,... others, gnats,... it goes on and on!
Hec', you're a wise father for doing these kinds of things with you kids! ...Even if you worried your lovely wife to nail biting distraction-- - Dingo bait! ... no doubt, the kids know now the Good Stuff you have shown and shared with them, and the reasons for doing so,.. ....... Are there decent sized orchid shows any place close to you mate? or good nurseries? Gongora's and the like should be available,.. I recall from working at the orchid nursery, how brutally restrictive Aussie import/export regulations were for so many things,... but that part of the world is loaded with species! The Stanhop's are central/south American,... one I can't grow here but love for sheer coolness is Dimorphorchis, a species from Borneo; these make two different types of flowers (top/bottom) on the same spike! Different color, some shape variation,..who knows why?

... this would grow fine at your place, to my undying envy-
.... I'll porn-up more a bit later mates,.... Cheers! ............ (forgot to holler at @Jraven ) :smoking:

 

[hecno]

@StickMan I recon there would be enough interest for a sub-section @Mossy

 

[Tommy McCain]

@StickMan I recon there would be enough interest for a sub-section @Mossy

My wife and I are just getting into orchids in our home as a new hobby for winter. She bought one at a local nursery but I want to try my hand at something a little more exotic. Do you have any recommendations, maybe resources you used?

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[Eyes on Fire]

I truly LOVE Orchids,only grew them for a short time and dont really have the decent set up they really required to do decently well and hardy indoors. SO,,,lol i'll live vicariously through y'all LMAO!!