Calanthe Veitchii cv Sanderiana

This actually is the second orchid I ever owned. (first was a Cattleya hybrid) I picked this up in 1974, from Hugh Iltis at the Univ. of Wisc, Madison. I was still in high school at the time, and was looking at Madison for college. I have been watering this plant now for 36 years. Its an old familiar friend. I had abused it some recently, so right now it is only in a 4 inch pot. I know Calanthe Veitchii when grown well should have pseudobulbs double the size I have now. This is an antique orchid. This is a surviving plant from one of the first orchid hybrids ever made. The cross is (rosea x vestita) and it was registered in 1860 by Veitch. This is a named clone from that original cross. In those days for hybrids they used latinized varietal names instead of clonal names as we do today, so Sanderiana is the clonal name.

Flowers are about 2 inches in vertical natural spread. This is another one where the flower stem grew up into the light fixture before I noticed it, so the stem is crooked instead of the normal graceful arch.

What is interesting is that Calanthe make a passable cut flower, lasting near a week after cutting. I have also provided these flowers to float in bowls as part of table decor for a dinner party thrown by a friend. So they are sturdy in spite of their soft look & paper thin texture.

Enjoy

Is there a trick to keep them alive for 30+ years Leo? I tried 2 of them years ago, and each time they were gone after 2 years ! Jean

wow! what a great piece of orchid history!!!

(would you please tell me your potting media?)

Way to go Leo!! Great growing! The blooms are lovely!! Thanks for sharing a bit of orchid history!

Talk about pressure! Keep up the good work! :clap: :clap: She's charming! :drool:

So, did the lure of the plant convince you to go to Madison!? oke:

NYEric said:

So, did the lure of the plant convince you to go to Madison!? oke:

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Yep, I graduated in 1978, hardly remember it though, it was 30 years ago, and it was the 1970's. :evil: It was a great place to be.

For growing deciduous Calanthe, they are easy if you remember they come from monsoon areas. I pot Calanthe in the same potting mix I use for the Phrags, a good moisture retaining media. I try to grow them bright, as bright as the Cattleya, or up to Cymbidium bright. They will take quite a bit of light. The deciduous Calanthe are warm growers, they come from low elevation areas. Keep them warm when in active growth. They tolerate cold well when in their dry dormancy, but if you want them to break dormancy in Spring, you have to warm them up. Calanthe can be heavy feeders in active growth, be sure to fertilize them as they develop. For water I use the same as everything else, municipal tap water that is about 225 ppm from the tap.

When to water is the trick; dormant pseudobulbs normally sprout new growth in spring, here sometime between March (Veitchii) to May (rosea). I wait, leaving them bone dry until the new growth is at least 1/2 inch tall. They won't break dormancy if kept cool, they need to warm up a bit to break dormancy. I put them on a high windowsill for the dormancy, in spring it warms up there and gets quite sunny. This seems to break the dormancy where the rest of the house is a bit cooler. Once they start growing I repot if they need it, and put them back in the collection near the Phrags. I have even set them in 1 inch deep saucers so that they stand in a little water like some of the Phrags, they do fine like this. Bright, warm & wet are what they want while growing. Toward autumn I take away the saucers of water, and move them into the area with the Paphs, where they get less water. Usually by beginning of December I move them to their winter dry windowsill, the leaves will have started to yellow, drying them out will cause the leaves to drop. Leave them completely dry when dormant. Don't be tempted to give them a little drink, water during dormancy causes rot, this is how I have lost a number of the other deciduous Calanthe. Usually as the leaves yellow and fall, is when the flower stem appears. Resist the temptation to water while they are in bud or bloom, it only will cause problems with rot. That's it! Not real complicated. Calanthe Veitchii is a little more tolerant of accidentally getting watered after the dormancy has started. I have lost Calanthe rubens, and C. rosea to rots because they were watered when they were dormant. The issue may be that water & cooler temps is a bad combination. I think the warmer you grow the more tolerant of off season water they are. I do have one clone of Calanthe rosea left, when it blooms I will share photos here.

Yep, the 70's! Graduated in 76! Hard to believe that much time has passed!! I still remember the brownies!

Leo Schordje said:

Don't be tempted to give them a little drink, ...

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Why Eric does not grow Calanthe!

Fascinating! I have a couple of C.rubens, but they just doubled. no fl spike... I think I might have done something wrong with the watering!!! Thank you very much for the info!!!!

Pretty flowers!

In another thread, I wondered, Leo, if you had changed your photo set-up. But these photos look pretty good. I especially like the second photo -- very graceful line made by the stem, and the lighting is nice.

Maybe if you moved the plant a little further away from the background, the background might be a little darker?

Thanks for the growing info Leo!!! Jean

SlipperFan said:

Pretty flowers!

In another thread, I wondered, Leo, if you had changed your photo set-up. But these photos look pretty good. I especially like the second photo -- very graceful line made by the stem, and the lighting is nice.

Maybe if you moved the plant a little further away from the background, the background might be a little darker?

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Thanks Dot,
No, no change in the photo set up. The big improvement in my photos was to use the tripod and stop using the flash, by using a low ASA to get the longer exposure. Those suggestions came from you. I have tweaked the placement of lights around the room to get a better photo. And I do a manual white balance adjustment. (another idea from you)

One idea I did stumble on, I found the control to up and lower the exposer a little from the automatic preset. So I have been bracketting my shots, and usually the under exposed by -0.7 is the one that looks better.

One other trick I started using; I set the resolution at the max number of pixels. The super fine resolution. Then I crop the image, and only after cropping, do I resize the image for saving or web display.

It is amazing all the things you can do with a little $150 Nikon Coolpics point and shoot. Nice photos when on complete automatic, but you can really tweak the photos with all the manual settings.

Now I need to change the background cloth. The old background cloth is over 4 years old and getting dusty, also a little bit shiny. I have a new peice of combat cloth waiting to be cut and hung. Just haven't gotten to it. My photo spot is my desk, and the wall it is against. I use an old candle holder as the pedestal to lift the plants above the junk on the desk. So it is a low tech set up. The new black drape cloth is more of a long fiber felt texture, so it reflects very little light. Got it from my brother who does a lot of video production. I will try moving the pedestal farther from the wall too, that is a good idea.

I try to pay attention to composition, your comment about getting one flower in focus and facing the camera for photographing sprays of orchids is a good idea. I used it for that second photo.

Thanks again for the advice and the compliment. I keep trying to upgrade my pictures. More than once I have been embarrassed by some of my own photos when I give talks, so I really needed to learn how to take better pictures. Thanks

Leo Schordje said:

...One idea I did stumble on, I found the control to up and lower the exposer a little from the automatic preset. So I have been bracketting my shots, and usually the under exposed by -0.7 is the one that looks better.

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That's a good idea. One of the first things we always had our students do was to calibrate their meters. It is not uncommon that meters, which are designed to read an 18% gray card (neutral gray), actually over or underexpose that at the "normal" ISO setting.

Leo Schordje said:

One other trick I started using; I set the resolution at the max number of pixels. The super fine resolution. Then I crop the image, and only after cropping, do I resize the image for saving or web display.

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Another good idea. I do that, also. After cropping and resizing, I also sharpen the image a little, to make up for the loss of pixels in the resizing process. But never sharpen a file that has been saved as a .jpg -- it makes too many artifacts.

Leo Schordje said:

It is amazing all the things you can do with a little $150 Nikon Coolpics point and shoot. Nice photos when on complete automatic, but you can really tweak the photos with all the manual settings.

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Also true. I'd never get a camera that I could not set the aperture on.

Leo Schordje said:

Now I need to change the background cloth. The old background cloth is over 4 years old and getting dusty, also a little bit shiny. I have a new peice of combat cloth waiting to be cut and hung. Just haven't gotten to it. My photo spot is my desk, and the wall it is against. I use an old candle holder as the pedestal to lift the plants above the junk on the desk. So it is a low tech set up. The new black drape cloth is more of a long fiber felt texture, so it reflects very little light. Got it from my brother who does a lot of video production. I will try moving the pedestal farther from the wall too, that is a good idea.

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I'll look forward to seeing the results. I need to get some new black velvet, also -- mine is getting pretty ratty.

Leo Schordje said:

I try to pay attention to composition, your comment about getting one flower in focus and facing the camera for photographing sprays of orchids is a good idea. I used it for that second photo.

Thanks again for the advice and the compliment. I keep trying to upgrade my pictures. More than once I have been embarrassed by some of my own photos when I give talks, so I really needed to learn how to take better pictures. Thanks

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It looks to me like you are learning!

SlipperFan said:

.....

Another good idea. I do that, also. After cropping and resizing, I also sharpen the image a little, to make up for the loss of pixels in the resizing process. But never sharpen a file that has been saved as a .jpg -- it makes too many artifacts.

....

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Wow great Photo lesson dialogue!!!!

Dot could you explain somewhat more about jpg sharpening; i think I do not get the meaning of your statement completely (sorry)!?

Thanks
Jean

Nice to see a plant with such a long history. I feel that these tropical deciduous Calanthe are sufficiently different from the subtropical/temperate evergreen ones that they should be in different genera, but so far the experts say no.

JeanLux said:

Wow great Photo lesson dialogue!!!!

Dot could you explain somewhat more about jpg sharpening; i think I do not get the meaning of your statement completely (sorry)!?

Thanks
Jean

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Jean, if you can zoom in on a poor quality JPEG, you'll see a lot of pixels that look weird and distorted -- especially along edges of things. Over-sharpening can have that effect, also. But it happens strongly with jpegs that are sharpened, or even saved over and over (as jpegs). JPEG file format is called a "lossey" file format, i.e., information is lost from the original. If it's a high quality jpeg, you may not notice much loss as you zoom in, but you will the more the file is compressed (and sharpened).

I hope that makes sense. I'm a little tired tonight, and my explanation may show it.

SlipperFan said:

Jean, if you can zoom in on a poor quality JPEG, you'll see a lot of pixels that look weird and distorted -- especially along edges of things. Over-sharpening can have that effect, also. But it happens strongly with jpegs that are sharpened, or even saved over and over (as jpegs). JPEG file format is called a "lossey" file format, i.e., information is lost from the original. If it's a high quality jpeg, you may not notice much loss as you zoom in, but you will the more the file is compressed (and sharpened).

I hope that makes sense. I'm a little tired tonight, and my explanation may show it.

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Dot, maybe I got a bit confused about JPEG!
When I upload photos taken with my EOS Canon on my PC I have the pics in JPEG with sizes of about 3 mega! Now, when I load one JPEG file in my Paint Shop Pro, I do get an internal format (PSP) and a size of about 25 mega! On this basis I do my modifications to the pic, inclusively sharpening! Last I save the pic back to my PC-file and do get a JPEG-pic with a size of +/- 1 mega , or less if I have selected only part of the original pic! Is it therefore that you call JPEG "lossey"?
Nevertheless, IMO the sharpening that I did in PSP is 'normally' not too visible, but maybe I am wrong? ? Jean

(I always save a copy of all my photos, directly after uploading, before any modification )

When you save your jpeg from your camera to your PC, you are not saving over a jpeg. But yes, you will lose some information as you save it as a jpeg. I bring my camera images into Photoshop and save them as Photoshop files (psd) on my hard drive. Then I take the Photoshop image, downsize it, sharpen it, and then save it as a jpeg for use on the web.

I'm not familiar with Paint Shop Pro, but if you can save it with that file format, you probably won't lose information unless PSP is a "lossey" compression file format. Photoshop is a compression format, but not lossey.

Of course, the images take up more space on the drives, but with all the back up options these days, and the low cost of additional drives/CDs/DVDs, to me, it is worth it to have a high quality image that I can use in many different ways.

A week has passed, another flower has opened. Here is the update.