Jewel orchids fill me with wonder. Even simple "ordinary" Ludisia discolor charms and amazes me with its beautiful deep velvety leaves sparkling with golden crystals.
Anoectochilus albolineatus is fairly small, I suppose, for a jewel orchid, and doesn't make many leaves before it flowers. There is nothing especially spectacular about its foliage -- as sparkly and lovely as it is, I wouldnt' be able to tell it apart from most other Anoectochilus-es at a glance. But when I spotted them for sale at the Longwood Gardens show -- at a mere $10 apiece!!!! -- I snapped up four of the little darlings. Each darling consisting of 2 tiny darlings -- so eight?
A couple of the growths were kind of limp, doubless due to the trauma of show transportation. Since drought = death to these delicate dainties, I had to figure out impromptu terraria for them. I stripped off the outer layers of sphagnum moss from their tiny root systems and carefully tucked them into clear plastic wine tumblers with a nice moist layer of fresh clean sphagnum. I covered them loosely with a little plastic wrap. The photo shows the result. (One was limper than the rest, and that one is in a larger plastic covered dish along with other plants needing a bit of spa treatment. It's perked up nicely.)
I remember a friend of mine once nursing along a tiny scrap of A. roxburghii, using fresh live sphagnum moss in a brandy snifter. Things kept nibbling at it, and finally it did rot away, but that high humidity did keep it going a long time. I appreciate the hardiness of Ludisias all the more, now.
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