I have been away in Faversham for a few days, leaving Lillie and Isabelle, the youngest members of the Orchid Project, in charge of the greenhouse.

This time of year the greenhouse needs to be watered every other day as the weather is not too hot but not so cold that heating  causes the plants to dry out.

Thank you Lillie and Isabelle and Charlotte, of course, for looking after the orchids so well.

There are some beautiful blooms at the moment with two different clones of Cattleya bowringiana one pink and one blue. Below is the blue form, Cattleya bowringiana coerulea.

and here is the pink flowering clone.

These Cattleyas have recently had a name change to Guarianthe bowringiana.  Bowringiana is named after John Charles Bowring [1821 -1893] botanist and entomologist. We find these orchids grow well in our Warm Americas section.  In the wild these Cattleyas come from Guatemala and Belize where they grow on rocky cliffs and slopes of ravines.

Another orchid growing in Warm Americas is Cattleya perrinii. It too is named after a botanist.  Henry Perrine [1797 -1840] was responsible for introducing many tropical plants into the United States.  Cattleya perrinii originates from Brazil but is now very scarce in the wild.

Laelia gouldiana was once found as an epiphyte, growing on trees, in Central Mexico but is now extinct in the wild.  Here at Writhlington we have a number of plants growing in our temperate section.  The orchid is named after Jay Gould who was an American financier [1836 – 1892], railroad magnate and orchid enthusiast.