Bulbophyllum Beccarri

[swords]

Hey folks,
Feeling lucky today I took a trip up to the local orchid house and happened to score one of my longtime grail orchids, the tree mushroom-like Bulbo. beccarri! It's not a mature specimen but likely only a leaf or two away from starting to create the shingle leaves I love so much. It's of course mounted to a sheet of cork with some moss (starting to grow away from it now so I'll be getting a larger sheet) but I'm curious if anyone else is growing this awesome (and stinky!) orchid.

Any tips so I can give it the utmost care it deserves. The Bulbophyllum book doesn't have more than a few sentances on this one and mostly complaints about the flower smell, no decent indepth cultural info.

Here's the conditions I put it in today (my showerstall lowland Nep chamber):
400w metal halide (it's in a shadier area away from direct blast of light hanging on the wall)
temps: 70-90*F
fog & humidity: 75-85%

 

[JB_OrchidGuy]

Hello Josh. I found this on the plant. http://www.orchidspecies.com/bulbbeccarrii.htm
What are the shingle leave you are refuring too? I just started with bulbos so only have a few of them. The pictures in this link do not show anything resembling a shingle leaf you are refuring too. Enlighten me. Those conditions according to the link shoul dbe fine. I have been told that Bulbos do not like to dry out to much and like a high humidity. I tend to grow things in more light than normal, but from the sounds of it you should be good to go with the condition you have yours in.

BTW I;m Josh too LOL

 

[swords]

Hey Josh!

Wow, looks like mine could possibly flower at this age then! When the plant gets older the leaves grow the same way but they're much thicker and wider (leaves aprox 12" wide, 14" long and 1" thick) and they appear to slightly wrap back against the mount (like those mushrooms you see on old trees in the woods). To see a good six foot strip of them clasping and climbing a cork tube is real amazing! I have only seen the huge one at the orchid shop after the flowers had faded a day or so before so I never got to get a whiff of them. Just returned from the MN orchid show and no one there had one... I was hoping!

Yeah, all my plants (esp. the mounts) get a pressure mist every day before I leave for work. I'm hoping to see my Bulbo. medusae flower soon!

 

[JB_OrchidGuy]

Sounds like a winner. If it wasn't so dificult to post pictures here I would post pictures of the bulbo I have coming into spike. I just got it not to long ago, but its got two spikes on it now. I will be getting a Bulbo Roth in a trade soon once the weather warms up. So goodluck and I would like to see pictures when you do get it to flower. May have to work out some trade when things gets big enough for deviding.

Keep us posted, and feel free to PM if you need anything.

 

[swords]

Bulbos are cool! I've got the slipper fever recently though after seeing all of them at the orchid show the other day.

To post images: Click "image" button over the reply text box and type in the URL of the image in the pop up and hit "ok" button. Look out though, cos certain free image hosts don't allow off site linking and just give your post the dread red X's...

 

[JB_OrchidGuy]

Yeah I know. I;m used to sites that allow me to post pictures there so I normaly do not worry about the free image sites to host the images. I may end up putting more onto AOL since my wife insists on keeping it and using that, but getting pic onto it is a pain too. Oh well oneday I will put forth the effort.