GROWTH AND FLOWERING CYCLES Although Reichenbach could not tell it from the dried specimens he received from Warscewicz, a major difference between C. warscewiczii and C. labiata or C. mossiae was its flowering habit. Both C. labiata and C. mossiae complete their growths, then rest a month or more before flowering. Cattleya warscewiczii, however, flowers before its new growth is completed, and the flower buds emerge from the sheath while the pseudobulb is still actively growing.

These growth and flowering patterns of the large-flowered Cattleya species can have significant botanical value in describing the species. The 17 species can be divided into two groups based on whether they have a resting period after completing their new growth or they do not rest. They can be divided further based on how long they rest or, if they do not do so, whether the buds emerge from the sheath before the new growth is mature, or whether they appear as tiny buds in the sheath at maturity of the pseudobulb.

At times, the artificial rules of botany severely inhibit our ability to evaluate nature, and the large-flowered Cattleya species are a good example of this. It was unnecessary to drag these species through 100 years of botanical uncertainty, when the people who grew them in the mid-1800s had already answered all the questions on how they were different, and why they should be separate species.

FRAGRANCE We have not yet found a way to describe fragrances with simple words, but if you grow the large-flowered Cattleya species, you need no other characteristic to identify them. They all have lovely, distinct fragrances that are unique to each species. This is another wonderful benefit these species offer, for they can make your home smell like an ever-changing fragrant flower garden every day of the year.

It is difficult to say too many positive things about the large-flowered Cattleya species. No two of their large, showy flowers in enchanting shades of lavender are, like people, ever exactly alike. They are one of the most feminine flowers in the whole realm of orchids, with a thin, delicate substance that is glistening and fragile. The various large-flowered Cattleya species flower year round and all have delightful fragrances. If you really get to know them, they will tell you the season of the year and sometimes even the day of the week.

I think the greatest compliment the large-flowered Cattleya species have received is that in the major countries where they grow wild they have been named the national flower. These are countries where literally thousands of different orchids grow wild — orchids from a wide range of genera — yet it is C. mossiae that is the national flower of Venezuela, and C. trianaei that is the national flower of Colombia, not a species of Phragmipedium, Sobralia or Miltoniopsis.

The large-flowered Cattleya has always been called the queen of the orchid world and, after passing through two centuries of popularity, the queen still reigns over the whole year with a friendly grace and a timeless beauty.

An Orchid Myth

Many have heard the story that Cattleya labiata was discovered by accident when it arrived in England as packing material around some ferns. William Cattley, the story goes, threw the packing material under the bench in his stove house and, atonishingly, the packing material flowered as C. labiata.

This myth grew out of an article written in 1893 by Frederick Boyle, entitled “The Lost Orchid” in which Boyle observed, with typical British humor, that William Swainson, the discoverer of C. labiata, probably did not know himself where C. labiata grew and that “The orchids fell in his way — possibly collected in distant parts by some poor fellow who died at Rio. Swainson picked them up, and used them to pack his lichens.”

In 1893, no one really knew where Swainson had collected C. labiata, but Boyle’s bit of fun and nonsense was taken seriously by future writers, who molded it into the grand myth described above. It was not until 1900 that Swainson’s written account of his journey through Brazil in 1817 and 1818 was discovered and the facts exposed. As it turned out, Swainson discovered C. labiata in Pernambuco, Brazil, not Rio de Janeiro, and, as he saw the plants in full bloom, he knew they were magnificent. He knew William Cattley would like them, and Cattley took good care of the plants on their arrival in Barnet.

— A.A. Chadwick.

Additional Pictures

Cattleya labiata assortment
Alba form assortment

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