Grammatocymbidium Lovely Melody

[mrhappyrotter]

Grammatocymbidium Lovely Melody (Cymbidium ensifolium x Grammatophyllum scriptum)

This is just starting to open the blooms, so hopefully I'll be able to post more photos once everything is open.

I think the hybrid name is quite appropriate, this is such a great mixture of traits from both parents and it's hard to think of a better outcome for this hybrid. I bought a tiny little backbulb from Louisiana Orchid Connection many years ago, and it's just now reached blooming size for the first time. All I can say is, this is exactly what I like about Cymbidiums and I am overjoyed with how this turned out. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I'm loving it!

Flowers are small, but there are going to be a lot of them, and they are fragrant! The scent is exactly like Cymbidium ensifolium. This is supposedly a warm grower so I have protected it from cool temperatures. It's also a fairly small and compact grower by Cymbidium standards. The bulbs are proportionally large, in fact they are larger than a standard chicken egg, big and fat for sure. However, the foliage is more or less about the same size as a standard ensifolium, so this doesn't take up a lot of space.

I'm enjoying that it's blooming in late spring / early summer, since it's a time of year when I don't have a lot of Cymbidiums in bloom.

Overall, I give this hybrid an A+. It's easy growing. Seems to be easy to bloom. Flowers are fragrant and attractive. It's hard to ask for anything more, given the parentage.

 

[mrhappyrotter]

Again, my photography skills suck, but here are some more photos. Unfortunately the flowers aren't lasting all that long with the extreme heat we've been having in my area. Some of the flowers blasted before opening and others died early because I think they were pollinated. Interestingly enough, these seem to be more attractive to wasps than to bees, where as other similarly scented Cymbidiums are like crack for bees.