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May I be proud?


Guest Andreas Eils

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Guest Andreas Eils

Good evening ladies and gentlemen,

two years ago I bought a couple of Masdevallia ignea. I was asked to paint a watercolour for my mother´s school friend who became 60 in 2011. Orange flowers and green leaves would be fine she told me.

I wouldn´t be Andreas Eils if I wouldn´t find something SPECIAL to paint! :biggrin: I was remembering a Masdevallia flower in an old catalogue of an orchid nursery I kept. The picture was labelled as Masdevallia militaris. I did a Google search and found out that Masdevallia militaris obviously wasn´t a valid name anymore and the item in search is in fact called Masdevallia ignea.

I was totally fascinated by this glowing orange-red flower and decided to buy such a plant.

I never grew Masdevallias before but knew the montane species from South America need cool conditions. So, why not growing the Masdevallia together with my highland Neps? Said and done.

A couple of months later I got a visit of an orchid expert. He predicted to me it would be nearly impossible to keep a montane Masdevallia in a terrarium and the plants would be most likely dead after about six months! :shock:

Well, he is proven wrong...hehehehe... In fact the plants grew vigorously but sadly no flower bud appeared last year. I was told M. ignea would be hard to get to flower. So, I slowly faced up to my plants would most likely never flower. :(

THEN CAME spring 2013....

:laugh:

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This flower show compensates for all misery I suffered with my plants in the last time!

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with some back light :)

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The whole plant is looking like this:

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I´ve counted 13 flower scapes (in this picture you can only see 12, I believe).

13!!!!!!!

:jive::dance3::dance4:

As you can see I grow this plant on a piece of cork and a thin moss layer (not sphagnum!). Growing it in a pot doesn´t work for me as the roots stay moist for too long. This eventually results in root rotting.

The tank is ventilated by a mini fan every 30 min for 30 min. :o)

Finally the second plant has also produced a flower - only a single one unfortunately.

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The sepals (not petals, those are tiny and hidden in between the sepals in the center of the flower) are narrower and a little redder than those of the first plant.

The third plant doesn´t flower and I think that one isn´t a Masdevallia ignea as its leaves are narrower and longer than the ones of the two flowering plants.

Well, I am not sure if my flowering plants are truely M. ignea at all. I have heard stories about only a few selected nurseries sell the "real thing" and everything else would be hybrids... :roll: And my specimens don´t origin from such special orchid nurseries.

I don´t mind I love the flowers of my plants! ;-)

I hope, you also do!

Cheers

Andreas

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you certainly may be proud, what a fantastic looking flower! I know sweet fanny adams about orchids but I know a fantastically strange and beautiful flower when I see one. thanks for sharing! :l_sunny:

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Guest Andreas Eils

:laugh: Thank you very much for the words of cheer, Neil! In fact I am more prone to kill each plant I wanna grow...hahahahahaha... Aaaahhhhh...I don´t know sometimes I seem to just have incredible luck! :biggrin:

The orchid expert (he is a carnivorous plants grower, too) never visited me again. (He actually only paid me a visit to bring me the freshly printed calendars of the German Carnivorous Plant Society which I sold in 2011.) But of course I couldn´t resist to send him an email with a link to my Flickr gallery.... :cd:

That´s what he replied:

Deine Masdevallien sehen wirklich supergut aus. Auch wenn ich skeptisch war, hast Du es sehr gut hinbekommen.

In English: "Your Masdevallias really look superb! Even if I was sceptical you´ve done your job quite well."

:teehee:

I´d say about myself: Even the biggest loser must have a good day in his life! Hehehehehehe....

and how did the watercolour painting turn out?

It´s looking like this: http://www.cpukforum...leryℑ=3379 The repro photography of the watercolour is a bit dark unfortunately. :oops: I was guided by web photos of flowering Masdevallia igneas when I was painting.

Thanks to the other guys who replied to my topic, too. :happy:

Seeya

Andreas

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