We were waiting for luncheon one day in April 1954 when a public relations man from Hollywood turned to me.
“Your husband tells me you have successfully bloomed an orchid two years in succession in your hotel apartment.”
“Yes,” I answered, “it was a Cattleya Mossiae, not too difficult to handle.” Paul Snell of Robinson-Hannagan. And I was soon deep in an orchid talk-fest.
“Do you know Cycnoches chlorochilon, the swan orchid?” he soon asked.
“I don’t believe I do,” I replied.
“I have a few. I’ll send you one when I get back to California.”
A week later, the package arrived by air, along with a letter of information and instruction.
“Be careful unpacking. The plant has a new shoot started. Treat the same as a cattleya. Water once a week. Keep the temperature between 60° and 85° degrees Fahrenheit if possible.
If convenient, put the pot in a pan containing water and a few pebbles, but don’t let the pot rest in water—spray foliage on hot days.
Keep on the dry side rather than wet. Place in the north or east window, if possible.
Give it plenty of neglect, as it seems to do best that way. If you miss a few sprayings or waterings, don’t worry about it.”
I had only west and south windows in that apartment, so I chose a west one.
The fat, silvery-coated parent shoot was 7″ inches tall and thick as a banana. The new 2″ inch green shoot grew at one side from the base of the old stalk.
Healthy, waxy white roots were creeping over the top of the osmunda fiber in the pot and proliferated.
How I Grew The Plant
About once every 4 or 5 weeks, I gave it a liquid feeding with a soluble orchid food.
Also, while the plant was small, I sprayed it weekly in the bathtub, holding it upside down afterward to drain the water from the leaf axils to avoid rotting there.
Later I resorted to a fine syringe spray for the foliage.
One summer night, while we were out, the wind crashed the plant to the floor from its pebbled saucer.
Fortunately, no harm was done, but we obtained a wire cover from a hardware store used for a drain pipe the next day.
Into this, we pushed the four ½” inch clay pot, clipped the superfluous wire tips even with the top edge of the pot, and set the whole into a porcelain pot.
This arrangement held it in a secure position yet allowed plenty of air circulation at the bottom and sides of the clay pot, so important to most orchids.
In September, we moved. The new apartment had only south windows, so I set the plant in the center of the living room to avoid too much sun.
In late November, we left for Cunha. I left notes under each of my plants for their watering care by our faithful bell captain.
On New Year’s Eve, on our return, we were thrilled to find a flower stalk with two knobby buds showing.
On Sunday, January 9, one bud began to open; on January 11, the second started opening; by January 13, they were both fully open in all their beauty. Sunday. January 16, Al Sozio took the close-up portrait picture.
Fragrance Of Large Flowers
The large flowers have a sweet fragrance, particularly in the morning. The fleshy, waxy sepals and petals spread wide and are a soft, chartreuse yellow-green.
The lip petal, slightly in front of the others, is a paler creamy white, except in the lower center of its rounded mound, where there is a dark green depression encircling the cone-shaped callous enclosing the stigma.
The slender column curves down gracefully and then turns upward in a semi-circle to the enlarged spoon-like tip surrounding the pollen.
Ten to eleven days later, these flowers were fully open, and this curving column moved upwards.
What I judged to be the stigma projected from the greenish base and the spoon-like tip of the column hooked itself around the brownish stigma.
Soon afterward, the flowers began to fade. This leads me to believe we had a hermaphrodite or perfect flower with both sexes in one bloom, a comparatively rare occurrence in this particular species though typical in most garden plants.
When The Swan Orchid Bloomed
After it bloomed, I continued to water lightly, but evidently, one should have withheld the water sooner as the plant stood still.
Finally, I set it in a dim corner to rest and stopped watering it.
The leaves began to brown and dropped off as they should. But before the last one had gone, a new flower stalk started to shoot out from the current main stem.
By June, this 3” inch long stalk had a swelling bud at its tip, which opened to its full creamy-chartreuse beauty on June 18.
In this bloom, the central projection in the lip petal was a light spring-green with the semi-circular base of this callous, deep foliage green.
In profile, the forecast resembled the rounded prow of a boat. Deep yellow pollen was visible in the spoon-tip of the curving column.
As the flower aged, its color became a deeper chartreuse and the pollen a deeper yellow-orange.
By the 18th day, the whole flower turned a buffy-orange tone. No projecting stigma appeared. The pollen in the spoon tip turned brown. We had had a male flower for our second bloom stalk.
The usual blooming period for the swan orchid is October to January. This plant has a new 10” inch green shoot in August. I wonder when this one will bloom?
44659 by Betty Blossom Johnston