Friday, December 17, 2010

A bloom while orchid sitting

Whenever I am out of town for more than a couple of days, I will usually let my mother-in-law take my orchids and keep them watered and happy while I'm gone.  When they are out of town, I get to reciprocate by watering her orchids.   The other day when I went to water the orchids I was surprised to find one in full bloom!

lc_maris_song
Laeliocattleya Mari's Song

The tag on this orchid said Lc. Mari's Song.  I looked it up online and found that Lc. is the official abbreviation for the genus Laeliocattleya, which is a cross of the genera Laelia and Cattleya.  In my search I even found the genealogy of this particular cross.  It is fascinating to see the amount of work and time that has been spent on making crosses that eventually resulting in this large, colorful flower.

Here's a link to the genealogy, if you're interested.

And here's a link to the orchid genera abbreviations.

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