I've had a plant of Catasetum atratum (as labelled by Aranda Orchids, Brazil) for about four years. It blooms every year with a decent spike of 6-8 flowers. The flower season has steadily clocked forward each year...I'm almost certainly doing something wrong, as the plant blooms roughly every 13 months.
The plant as I bought it was a cluster of bare-root pseudobulbs, fairly small but mature. This year's growth finally matches the old ones for size and robustness...so hooray...so the flowers this time ought to be really good, even better than before...but no flowers yet! hence this post, maybe the plant will feel encouraged to flower if it feels the lurve of being talked about.
One thing now troubling me: I'm not entirely sure it's C. atratum. There are several Brazilian species with spotty sepals and petals and a greenish labellum. I'm thinking now that mine looks a bit more like C. confusum, but not really like that one either cos the lip is more open...argh.
The lip on my plant is quite compressed, and slightly toothed but not fimbriate. I somehow failed to keep a photo of the flower interior, which would aid identification. The spike habit is arching rather than pendant. All descriptions of C. atratum mention the fragrance, but I don't actually remember this flower being fragrant, and I'm one of those people who really dig fragrant orchids. Could just be an oversight, but I dunno.
Bloom, baby, bloom!
O yes, the odd thing it's growing in is a clear plastic lid from a spindle of blank CDs. No drainage hole. I first stuck it in there figuring it was a convenient container while the cluster of bare-root bulbs decided to send out a new growth. After the new growth sent out roots, I was too distracted to pot the thing in a proper pot with mix. By the time it spiked and bloomed it was Far Too Late. (Alan Koch of Gold Country Orchids was amused, seeing it on the Manhattan OS Show Table.) So it's never been removed from the CD lid. It's extremely happy, sending up fine nest-roots and breaking a new lead this year. I water it by adding about half a cup, letting it sit, and then later draining the excess into the humidity tray. It gets fed along with the other plants in active growth, same method. For someone with a pitiful 25% humidity all winter, shooting up to 80% in the summer, it's a better method than basket culture but with similar results.
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