Flower improvement across four years

[monocotman]

I noticed recently that I had four years of photos on this computer so thought it was interesting to look at flower development.
This Cattleya lueddemanniana came from Orchideen Strauß nearly five years ago. Although most of this species grow and flower very early in the calendar year this one is very determinedly a summer grower like labiata. It flowers in October. This has been its routine for the past four seasons and it is just starting down the same path now with new growth shoots. It may be because I grow indoors and the artificial lighting is affecting the growth cycle.
This was the first flowering in 2015. A nice pale even flower but nothing special.

This one is from 2016. The petals are slightly fuller.

now for 2017. Again just two flowers and no hint of the improvement in 2018.

So in 2018 there were four huge flowers with way better shape than anything that had gone before. The individual flowers were 6 inches across and seven inches high.





Why was this? I don’t have an obvious answer.
The bulb produced in 2018 was not the biggest. The weather may have been a factor. We had the hottest summer ever and the cattleyas all sat under a tree for a couple of months with plenty of light and air and maybe four hours sun per day. The plant may have been more mature and able to support larger flowers. I may have improved my culture. This plant has been easy to grow with very few problems.
It would be interesting to see other examples of improvement from slipper talkers,
Regards
David

 

[naoki]

It is cool to see the changes over time, David! My C. warneri (this thread) made a noticeably bigger flower this year. Unfortunately, I didn't record the size, so I might be wrong, though. Interesting, 2 of the flowers in the same inflorescence were quite a bit smaller than the largest.

 

[monocotman]

Nice warneri. Flower size is usually associated with plant size so maybe as your plant matures it could carry several flowers of the same size.
It is a bit of a coincidence but I think this lueddemanniana also came originally from bela vista. I know that the importer sources some species from this company and they have a whole load of concolor forms of this species on their web site. Far more than anyone else and several look similar.
David