Why Orchids are both Fascinating and Confusing

Spring is Sprung and the garden smells delightfully of a mix of the jasmine (now finishing) the wisteria (just starting to bloom) and the citrus & burnt honey scent of the Dendrobium speciosum.

A native Australian orchid - common names are King Orchid and Rock Lily - and those common names are confusing because the Dendrobium kingianum (now Thelchiton kingianum) gets called Pink Rock Lily but the speciosum is the King!!!    We also have some kingianums - pretty things.

There is confusion not only with the common names - the botanists have been renaming many of our orchids and I'm not sure if I should call our "King orchids"  Dendrobium speciosum or Thelychiton speciosus.

While we are on names - the Royal Botanical Gardens site gives the Eora peoples names for the D or T speciosum/sus and says that:

"The starchy stems of the rock Lily (Dendrobium speciosum) are edible. The stems from a variety of other species of Dendrobium are crushed and applied to sores, wounds and burns..."

Also confusing is the variability inherent to orchids - we've two plants currently flowering - the one in the top photo and this one -
with flowers that are quite cream / lemon in colour, more sparse on the stem and much larger.

The cream King Orchid flowers are about 1.5" almost 4cm tall

The almost white King Orchid flowers are 3/4" or 2cm tall

The whiter varient is quite spectacular this year.

Naturally the Blythe dolls love all the spring flowers too :-)

And here I am introducing my latest darling - Ruby Beatrice Rose.  Ruby is a Rosie Red BL

Hmmm smelly!

Such a cutie - she often looks like she is about to burst into giggles.  Ruby is in really good shape for a 12yr old dolly - the RR BL was the 4th Neo Blythe to be released by Takara.  The only thing is that a previous owner gave her a wonky hair-cut and fringe (bangs).  However, I think I can restore her original hair style with a partial re-root ... more later.

Meanwhile - another Blythe & orchid photo and thanks to Beatrix Potter for the quote I'm about to mangle. 

Imogen found the effect of so many orchid flowers is soporific