This is a Paph micranthum, a plant I bought from Ray Rands some 15 or so years ago. It allegedly came from Kwong See (Cantonese to english) or Guang Xi in pinying. It took many years to get the plant established, this is only the 3rd time it has bloomed since I got it. The natural spread is 7.5 cm horizontal and 10.0 cm vertical. The frosted look toward the petal edges is a nice shading to white. Very lovely in person.
Except for the asymetrical color pattern in the dorsal I would say this is just about award quality. Unfortunately I was feeling under the weather and did not get it to AOS judging Saturday. Oh well, when it blooms again, in about 5 years I can try to show it then.
Very nice one... Micranthum Kwangsee/Kwong See is my favorite form of micranthum. That's funny that yours flowers now, because mine are blooming now as well.
I have many plants of micranthum kwangsee that I selected over the years. (first picture is one selected one, second is another one that is promising, but got a mice problem, plus the bloom is fading, hence the dorsal...), and I wanted to stat a thread about that variety. It is not frequently what is sold as eburneum, the micranthum eburneum sold at present time for most of them are the pale to white-pouched micranthum from North Viet Nam, and the shape can be horrible. The flower size is smaller too.
I have yet to see a really bad micranthum Kwong See ( or kwangsee, as the original exporter wrote long time ago). They come 70km south of Nanning, GuangXi province, and, no matter the plant size and shape, the flower quality is always in the medium-high to very high quality. 1 man has the complete monopoly since it has been discovered, and is the only one able to get plants of this type. He hide most of his stock, and apparently he collected a lot of plants, and divide them over the years. ( the micranthum kwangsee from the Taiwan show comes from him as well...).
They do not grow like the normal micranthum. From what I have found:
- the roots of the wild plants are always completely covered with a red sticky clay, no roots or leafmould or whatever. Normal micranthum usually have a more organic fibrous soil on and around the roots. The root system of those plants remind me of collected paph concolor
- when imported recently they are prone to leaf dieback vey easily, and to a dry yellow-brown rot.
- They grow very fast for me with warm summer temperatures and a mix that is kept drier. The leaves are skinnier than a normal micranthum as well. However, when they grow well, the normal micranthum do not grow that much and that well. The growth is periodic. They have right now a massive spurt of growth, after a very cold winter.
Do you have a picture of the leaves of yours by the way ?