I've tried to find a phal mariae for quite a while, and even tried buying imported plants from a philippino orchid nursery that's come to the redland orchid festival. I originally had a few from Rice's Orchids that used to be in Homer, NY. Of course, I killed them (sigh) along with many other amazing plants that I had the good fortune to at least see flower (I wish I knew something about growing orchids way back then... ). I may have one true mariae left from Rice's; I almost killed the plant a few years ago and it has slowly been regenerating and getting some size. I also had one or two others that were called 'deltonii' from rice's that turned out to be bastianii. One plant I thought was a mariae from Rice's turned out to be bastianii or a hybrid between mariae and bastianii (that was supposed to be an outcross between mariae's)
Last Fall, we had Duane Erdmann come to our society from Pa. and give a very interesting talk. During dinner afterwards we started talking about native orchids and he mentioned that he had visited Jim Rice back in the day (Jim was who had introduced me to native orchids way back in central ny); I asked if he had any plants that had come from rice's and especially any phal mariae, and he said that he had! Well, last month he sent me a box of very very nice plants, and most were either in bud or became so in a few weeks! The mariae had quite a few buds, but the shock of being shipped caused most of the buds to drop off. One stayed on so I'm taking a pic of it
mariae flowers hang downwards mostly, so I had to get underneath the plant to get this image
closeup of center of flower
shot showing dense trichomes on lip. often indicative of mariae instead of bastianii
whole plant; usually mariae has descending flower spikes, bastianii is upright more or less
Last Fall, we had Duane Erdmann come to our society from Pa. and give a very interesting talk. During dinner afterwards we started talking about native orchids and he mentioned that he had visited Jim Rice back in the day (Jim was who had introduced me to native orchids way back in central ny); I asked if he had any plants that had come from rice's and especially any phal mariae, and he said that he had! Well, last month he sent me a box of very very nice plants, and most were either in bud or became so in a few weeks! The mariae had quite a few buds, but the shock of being shipped caused most of the buds to drop off. One stayed on so I'm taking a pic of it
mariae flowers hang downwards mostly, so I had to get underneath the plant to get this image
closeup of center of flower
shot showing dense trichomes on lip. often indicative of mariae instead of bastianii
whole plant; usually mariae has descending flower spikes, bastianii is upright more or less
