May 11, 2003
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One of my recent orchid purchases. This is a phaleanopsis that I bought last week Sunday. I paid $5 for it at the Pahoa Village Farmers Market. It has five lovely blooms.
This is a mini catalaya, bought weeks ago with only 3 buds showing. I got it at the other local farmers market, where a representative of Kalapana Tropicals sells the plants that aren’t quite export quality, for $4.50 each. This is one I’ve bought previously, that the grower says has a leaf spot virus. His whole flask of seedlings was contaminated. The virus doesn’t hurt the plant, only causing the odd spotting in the leaves you can see in the photo. But it can be spread to other orchids if the implement used to separate for multi-propagation is used on another plant. If I can come up with a section of this plant with 4 uprights that shows no evidence of the virus, I may be able to propagate healthy cuttings. Since I have 4 original plants, I’m hoping to get a few disease-free clones. Incidentally, the color that the blooms opened up with are not what they will end up looking like over time. The grower himself told me today that they will turn yellow-orange (as the others were that I bought in bloom). I will add a new pic of these then (if they really DO change color!).
