![]() Other well-known cultivars include ‘Buchananiana’, which is larger and better shaped than normal, and which has a stunning dark purple lip. A particularly beautiful form is the famous and rare cultivar ‘Candidissima’. The lip can be very dark purple t times and there is also pink-lip varieties (horticulturally referred to as carnea forms). Most varieties have white to light lavender-pink sepals and petals with a lavender lip that is hooked or rolled under at the tip. Cattleya crispa flowers in midsummer in the United States and in February and March in its native Brazil. The flowers are 5-6 inches (12.7-15.2 centimeters) across and last in bloom over three weeks. Cattleya crispa normally has from five to seven flowers on an inflorescence, but can produce as many as 10 flowers on really well-grown plants. labiata, Cattleya warneri and Cattleya purpurata – the flowers are produced in greater numbers so that the overall effect is often more impressive. Although it does not have flowers as large and well shaped as Brazil’s most famous large-flowered species – C. In the winter, when it is dormant, it is at times exposed to low temperatures occasionally approaching frost.Ĭattleya crispa is one of the showiest of the Brazilian catteylas. It grows from 2,000 to 4,000 feet (650-1,300 meters) in areas that receive almost daily mists and rains during the growing season. ![]() crispa is not found on vertical rock faces. Unlike Cattleya lobata, (formerly Laelia lobata), which often grows in similar areas, C. It likes considerable sun, but its leaves and pseudobulbs do not normally show any purple tinting. crispa in large numbers and the plant became the favorite cattleya of the first generation of orchid growers.Ĭattleya crispa grows naturally in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro and in the southern Minas Gerais where it is found growing on the branches of large trees and sometimes on rock outcroppings where natural forest still exists. Commercial growers, however, knew where Rio de Janeiro was, and they had no trouble finding and importing C. ![]() The other known large-flowered Cattleya species, C. Labiata plants that existed in Europe and no one knew where to get any more. Only one private grower, William Cattley, plus the Glasgow Botanic Garden, had the few C. Labiata had been imported eight years earlier in 1818 to much excitement and botanical hype, C. Lindley described the plant as “Cattleya crispa, the curled-petaled Cattleya.” Lindley felt the crisping along the edges of the petals and lip was distinct enough and different enough to justify making C. A picture of a red-lip variety by the artist Sydenham Edwards accompanied the description. The famous English botanist, John Lindley, wrote a description of it in volume 14 (t 1172) of the Botanical Register for 1828. It bloomed the year after it was imported in the stove house at the Horticultural Society’s Chiswick Garden with five beautiful flowers and it was an immediate sensation. It had been sent to the Society by Sir Henry Chamberlayne from Rio de Janeiro where it grew wild in the local mountain areas. crispa, you could actually buy the plant, put it in your greenhouse, grow it and enjoy the flowers.Ĭattleya Crispa was first imported into England in 1826 by the Horticultural Society of London. Unlike Cattleya labiata and Cattleya maxima that you could only read about, with C. Best of all, it was available from commercial orchid houses. It had fairly large, attractive flowers and a lovely fragrance. ![]() It was prized because it was so free-flowering and easy to grow at a time when orchids in general were considered difficult plants. One of the most popular orchids of the early 1800s was a charming large-flowered Cattleya species called Cattleya crispa.
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