Stanhopea gibbosa

Stanhopea gibbosa

Featured orchid photo for the month of February 2010

Central american species native to Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Very fragrant and easy to grow but with short lived blooms. Very reliable plant, flowers for me every year in early summer. This plant was actually a small division that has progressively grown and filled the basket. This year it has seven spikes, some more advanced than others.

A fantastic feature that I like about stanhopeas, and this species in particular, is that the flowers on each spike open simultaneously,enriching the air in a sweet-choco-vanilla fragrance almost instantly. What I also like about stanhopeas is their very intimate relationship with their pollinators, the euglossine bees, which are quite interesting to read about; but most remarkably the male bees mix the scent of different stanhopeas to create their own fragrance which in turn is used to attract female bees.

In my view, this mixing of fragrances (and the resulting exchange of pollinia between stanhopea species) might explain why there is some confusion in classifying stanhopea species, as some species are phenotypically quite similiar.

Here, I have an inverted view of this species (taken with artificial lighting), a lateral view (taken with sunlight) and a picture of the basket before opening of one of the spikes. The ready to open flowers are quite remarkable to look at as well!

Apparently, a distinctive feature of this species is that it has large circular markings, or eyes, on both the basal part of the lip (i.e. the hypochile) and also on the sepals. Not suprisingly, these markings probably attract the bees to the base of the hypochile, where the fragrances are collected.

Chris

Awarded the inaugural Exceptional post bonus on 8th January 2010

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