At this point, I was the owner of 9 orchid plants: 2 phalaenopsis, 2 oncidium, 2 paphiopedilum, 1 dendrobium, and 1 angraecoid. Room under my lights was starting to run out. I had representatives of most of the common orchid subtypes, but I had intentionally neglected the cattleyas. The catts (also known as corsage orchids) have a very large following, but I just didn't see what the fuss was about. All the orchid-selling websites seemed to have huge selections of cattleya hybrids, but none of the photographs of those blooms really impressed me.
I changed my opinion on the catts after seeing a few specimens in person at the botanical garden in DC. These blooms are often massive, overwhelming the plants. What looked like messy crumpled flowers on the photographs, were large resplendent blooms in real life. At that point I decided to give cattleya culture a try. Enter the Slc 'Scheherazade.'
I purchased this plant from the same vendor who sold me my den victoria reginae, and my paph sanderianum. The vendor's nursery was local to New York, and both my previous plants from him had shipped in pristine condition.
The orchid arrived with two flower sheaths. Flower sheaths are simply leaf-life growths at the tops of pseudobulbs which indicate that the orchid may bloom from those pbulbs when in season.
sheath #1
sheath #2
I haven't noticed any change in the plant over the last 2 months, except for one new root near the surface of the media. However, if all goes well, I may be able to see flowers around February. I will be monitoring the sheaths for any developments.
Edit (2/23/12): I came to the understanding that due to taxonomical shakeups in the cattleya genus, the slc Jewel box has been renamed to cattlianthe (ctt) jewel box. I will refer to the plant by its current name from now on.
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