Paphiopedilum Sanderianum

     Who can resist the allure of 3-foot long flower petals?  I first heard about this plant while searching for my den victoria reginae, and ordered it on impulse from the same vendor.  Adult specimens of this species are obscenely expensive, selling for hundreds of dollars.  So instead I purchased this juvenile plant which is supposed to reach flowering size in about 2 years.  Its current leaf span is 16 inches, and the paph sanderianum has proven right its reputation as an infamously slow grower.


     The plant arrived with one yellowing old leaf which promptly fell off, and a about an inch of a new leaf poking out of the crown.  Over the last 4 months, little has changed except for the very slow growth on the newest leaf.

Now about 4 inches long

     The pale green coloring at the base of the new leaf indicate that it is still growing, as it should be.  The older leaves are approximately 9 inches long and since this is a growing plant, the newer leaves should all be larger than their predecessors. 3 inches of total growth over the 4 months that I've owned this orchid make for a study in patience.  Compare this to my paph NOID, which has nearly doubled in size over a comparable time span.  Blooming this one is going to take a long while.

Paphiopedilum NOID

Beautiful, nameless

     It wasn't always a NOID.  This was my first new orchid bought in NYC.  I picked it up in Manhattan's garden district, in one of the several flower stores along 28th and Broadway.  The flower initially had a tag, describing across between two other paph hybrids.  But for some reason I no longer remember, I didn't keep the tag.  Perhaps I'll go back to that store next July to see if I could spot the same-looking flowers and jot down the name of the cross.  In the mean time, this NOID paph is probably the healthiest of all my orchids.  The bloom lasted a whole month, and in the following months the orchid has put out a new growth which is promising to outgrow the original set of leaves.

love the leaf coloring

When I repotted the orchid in October, it had a small but healthy root system, and the new growth was putting out thick new roots of its own.  The new leaves have been growing at splendid pace.

This is a closeup of the new growth at the base.  I am not sure if it's normal for the 'stalk' of the new growth to be so slender and tall.  I've heard of orchids being described as 'leggy' when not exposed to sufficient light, so I wonder if that's the case here.  The two nubs in the center of the picture look like the beginnings of new roots, which will hopefully help stabilize the growth if they make it into the potting mix.