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"While the wide variety of the Oncidium orchid makes it difficult to be recognized, it surely gives one a great deal of satisfaction knowing and growing them; here with only one family you can have the whole repertoire of plants from small to large in all colors possible."
Red Orchid A Rare and Extremely Exquisite Flower
All orchids are exquisite. Their beauty always leaves one speechless and one never tires of admiring these wonderful creations of God. There are more than 25,000 species of orchid known to man today. They are extremely varied, and each variety has its own reasons to be admired. As a rule, the orchid flower has three inner petals that are outflanked by another three with a fourth one a little lower in a specific arrangement. You will also find that orchid mimic a great many animals in their adaptation to attract food, pollination or self-defense.
The Red Orchid (Red Moon Orchid) One of the Most Beautiful Orchids Known to Man
The Red orchid scientific name is Phalaenopsis corningiana. This flower owes its name to the mahogany color stripes that adorn its petals. The color combination sometimes has the yellow floral segments with the lip base colored deep red. This plant has not been hybridized because it does not fare too well in a green house, its life span there being less than 4-5 years. However, cross pollination with the red mahogany type and Phalaenopsis volacea, Phalaenopsis lueddemanniana and Phalaenopsis mariae has produced some amazing species, which are also most fragrant.
The Red orchid, they say, is a flower which deserves to be used as gift to the kings. Its beauty and elegance is rare even among the orchids. Though the Phalaenopsis are the most popular orchids for pot-growing, the Red orchid is part of this family; this flower is very rare because breeding this plant is quite difficult.
Generally speaking the family of Phalaenopsis is easy to cultivate and row in the greenhouse as it is a very unpretentious plant which grows well even in the hands of beginners. They have very strong roots and are adaptable to quite some variation in their ideal conditions, unlike the Red orchid which dies if not kept in the most ideal conditions.
This orchid family thrives when potted in fir bark rather the regular sphagnum moss common for orchids. The most common mistake people do with the plant is to rot its roots by over-watering it. The plants need just the right amount of sunlight never direct as this will burn the plant and create ugly freckles on it. At the same time, if it is starved of light, it will never flower.
It is common in this family of orchids to have three to four buds flowering at the same time. No sooner than the flowers fade, they should be cut off from just above the node. If things are optimal, a tiny baby orchid may come up in this spot after a while.
"Their flower spikes can be up to about eighteen inches tall, and the flowers always have a “beard” of hairy stamens."
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