Gentle OGDers, I am in Costa Rica for a few months and recently joined the Asociación Costarricence de Orquídologia when attending their annual Exposición Nacional de Orquídias the past March.
Last evening attended an ACO meeting for the first time in several years. Part of the evenings program includes an evaluation and recognigiton by the ACO Judges of the orchids the members have brought in. Amongst the interesting things on the table were a very fine specimen of Cattleya maxima with well-held, very flat (for a maxima) and dark colored flowers. It was accorded best foreign species. There was a Thunia marshalliana with a head of four nice flowers and a beautifully flowered specimen of a Prosthechea that looked a lot like P. fragrans, but was not. It was also accorded recognition for being so well fowered. But the 'prize' that was most commented on was a well grown and flowered plant of Brassia suavissima. It had 15 or twenty pseudobulbs and six sipkes of flowers, at least 2/3 of which were open. Flowers were a pale, very slightly greenish-yellow and for a brassia were very short segmented. The arrangement of the floweres was two ranked (as one would expect for a brassia) and the flowers were very closely spaced, which was not at all unattractive. Individual flowers appeared to be only 2 1/2" long and about 1 1/2" wide. The spikes were about 8 to 10 inches long with 15 or more per spike. I asked the owner about this species and was told that it came from the south part of the country in the area of San Isidro del General. The Judge doing the commentary on the plant also mentioned that there are only three known specimens of the this species known. The one she was describing, one owned by Lankester Gardens and another by another private collector. Anyone here have any further information on this very scarce species of Brassia from Costa Rica? Regards, Paul Mitchell Tampa, FL / Alajuela, CR == _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
