It’s finally time for a profile of one of my favorite plants of all time, Bulbophyllum grandiflorum. Why do I like this plant so much? you might be asking. Well, I don’t really have a good reason. It’s not the most popular Bulbophyllum among growers, but it’s not exceptionally rare either. A lot of people think it’s an ugly duckling, so to speak. I kind of agree with this, yet it is still near and dear to my heart. Here are some pictures of my plant:
Bulbophyllum grandiflorum
This is the best overall picture I have of it. You can clearly the flower spike in the center of the picture (next to the previous spike, now brown). This is an older picture, so it has since flowered and faded. Hiding on the left are two new growths (only one of which you can really see). The three oldest pseudobulbs predate the plant’s move to this mount. You can tell because the two old leaves point down, while the new ones are properly oriented.
The pseudobulbs are 1 to 2 inches tall, the leaves are about 5 or 6 inches, with about 1 inch spacing between pseudobulbs. The roots tend not to grow very long and are very thin and wiry compared to a genus like Phalaenopsis. And now for a picture of the flower:
side view
Observant readers will recognize this as the same flower as in the header at the top of the blog. This plant is indeed a division of that one (from the Vanderbilt greenhouse). The flower is a little difficult to photograph because it is so three-dimensional. You can see the hood-like upper sepal on the top and the two twisting, leg-like bottom sepals coming forward. The two side petals are greatly reduced, becoming little more than bumps next to the column. The lip is also pretty small and hinged so that it will bob up and down in a breeze.
front view
Here’s a front view giving you a peek at the lip in the center. You can see how the flower is borne well above the plant (or, rather, further out in this case). I really like the twisting lower sepals. Now for a closeup!
the complicated bits
So, here’s the teeny, tiny column, the slightly larger lip hanging over it, and right where the sepals meet is an itsy-bitsy green petal. Clearly not the impressive part of the plant. The white blotches on the hood are called “windows” and allow some light through. Theoretically this tricks insects into thinking that they can fly that direction, which of course they can’t. Somehow in their bumbling to get out of the flower it gets pollinated.
One of my favorite things about this plant is the smell. Some people describe it as “foul,” which is an epithet often applicable to Bulbophyllum. In this particular case, however, I disagree. Perhaps it is just my particular plant, but I think it smells exactly like pepper. Yes, the pepper that lives next to the salt on your kitchen table. The flower is fragrant both day and night. The interesting thing is that the plant itself smells faintly like pepper even when it’s not in flower. The smell is most pronounced right after watering. This is fairly atypical for orchids, and endears this plant to me all the more.
Now, for how I grow it. Like a lot of Bulbophyllums this species doesn’t really have a rest period, but grows and flowers year-long. It likes to be fairly wet and have high humidity. I break one of the cardinal rules of orchid growing with this plant. I keep it inside a large ziplock bag. Yes ladies and gentlemen, my plant gets almost no air movement. This probably isn’t great for it, but it’s really the only way I can keep its feet wet enough and the air humid enough. It flowered, so I guess it doesn’t mind all that much.
B. grandiflorum is native to Sumatra and New Guinea, so it’s pretty much a warm grower. Mine is probably nearer to intermediate, but I try to keep it was warm as possible. As for light, it doesn’t need a lot, but I’ve found it can tolerate intermediate levels. I keep it about 6 inches from a compact fluorescent bulb. Although I mist it maybe twice a week, I give it a really good watering once a week, along with the rest of my orchids. This is when I fertilize, too. I just use standard Miracle-Gro diluted to about 10 or 20%. Yes, I follow the axiom that one should fertilize orchids “weakly weekly.”
Let’s see, what else? I think that might be it. Hopefully I’m not forgetting anything. Is anyone else growing this? How do you do it? Well, I hope this was interesting and informative.
Never let anyone tell you what smells good and what doesn’t. Oh, and Happy Growing!
The Phytophile 