Waxlip and other orchids

This post will start of with the Waxlip Orchid, Glossodia major.  We have had good 'crops' of these in the past and are expecting a bumper flowering this year.  We looked at the prime spot yesterday (24 September) and there were lots of buds, but no actual flowers.  This morning I found one flower and became duly excited:

A couple of hours later I wandered up to show this seasonal first to Frances and found at least a dozen plants fully open. 

Part of the reason I was in the area was finding this bud on the 24th.  It is on its own, about 200m from any other Glossodia of which we are aware.  A couple of friends with much more expertise in orchids have suggested this is the likely ID but have suggested 'patience'.  To me?

We will see.  On the way back to the house I found another Cyanicula caerulea on a dry hillside.  They are turning up everywhere, which is not a bad thing!

Trying to keep this more or less in chronological  order, when we went to check the mystery on 27 September we found it had got no closer to flowering.  However, almost next to it we found another orchid:

This clearly shows the leaves to be hairy (like Glossodia) but quite a lot larger (in the original specimen the leaf had been munched somewhat so the size was not able to be assessed).  This may indicate we have an Arachnorchis sp (ie a spider orchid).  This will be VERY EXCITING.

Into each life a little rain must fall.  The first plant flowered on 28 September and it was a Glossodia.   As I commented it is hard to be upsetwith such a beautiful flower.

Having solved that one I then checked out a greenhood.  After some initial images were rendered pointless by the labellum closing I managed to get a halfway decent picture showing it to be Hymenochilus cycnocephalus, the Swan Greenhood.

Note the black 'T' on the labellum.

Shortly after this we went out to see what else could be snapped and also found our first Petalochilus for the season.  IMHO this is P. fuscatus or Dusky Fingers!

This is a photo by Frances!  It might look as though this is closely related to the Cyaniculas and indeed they were both seen as part of the Caladenia family in simpler times.


We also have orchids in the house.  Linking to the native orchids above, the first is a greenhood: specifically the blunt greenhood).  The scientific name is (or perhaps 'was') Pterostylis curta.  This we were given by a friend who is good at raising things from cuttings etc.  We did get it to flower ourselves though!

We recently attended the ACT Orchid Society Spring Show.  As usual it was rather spectacular and our credit card took a bit of a hit.  (Some other native orchids are shown here.and other posts in that blog including this.  OK, grumble, but I didn't say they were native to Australia!)

The first purchased specimen is a somewhat lairy Cymbidium.  It only has one flower spike this year, but with several vegetative shoots should be a monster next year.

Now we move to a pair of Phalanopsis.  (I cannot resist saying this is nothing to do with Chinese spiritual/political movement - that would be Phalan Opsis).