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

A Very Early Spring and other random things

I like to keep my blog uncontroversial so I won't talk about climate change but we have had a super short winter this year with a very warm and dry July.

Australian cuckoos don't make that sound and not many of the gardens round here have daffodils - locally the main marker of Spring is the star jasmine.

The first jasmine flowers appeared on the weekend - that's 27-28th July!!!

I adore Australia's native orchids with their delicate little flowers in all sorts of odd shapes ... we've had this Dockrillia teretifolia (used to be Dendrobium teretifolium) for just over 30yrs and this is the first time it has flowered in July!!! 

Audrey checks out the orchid flowers

First flowers burst open yesterday, 29th July.  This orchid has several common names: Thin Pencil Orchid, Rat's Tail Orchid (for the leaves) or Bridal Veil Orchid (for the masses of flowers spilling down a tree).  Ours is a NSW D. teretifolia with cream / lemon coloured flowers and it is growing on a casurina branch that is tied to the Moreton Bay tree - and I should add that the silver grey stuff belongs to neither the Moreton Bay Fig Tree nor to the orchid - that is "Old Man's Beard" or "Spanish Moss" a type Bromeliad.  The scent of this orchid is quite lovely - I wish one of the perfume companies could bottle it.

More flower photos?   Our camellias have been flowering profusely this year ... very proud of this plant and it's twin sister. 

Hubby rescued them about 15yrs ago - 2 pathetic sticks, pot-bound in ultra-dry, exhausted soil, a few yellowed leaves about to drop - I really didn't give them any hope.  Now they are healthy green bush/trees that give us lots of lovely blush-pink flowers.

"I think my bonnet needs a flower on it."

Our star magnolia gives us a few totally pretty and beautifully scented flowers every spring.

Spring-time weather makes me want to plant things and often results in a trip to the nursery.  Melville found the box I'd carried the new plants home in...

"As happy as a Kitty in a cardboard box"

And - just because I can - I'm going to confuse things with some photos taken weeks ago - on the 6th July when it still felt like we might be having a winter this year!

We took Imogen with us for some photos in the Royal Botanical Gardens ... Imogen was busy posing in the late-afternoon sunlight under some trees ...

 When I spotted some truly bizarre fungi.  The aged and collapsing ones looking like those forgotten carrots from the back of the fridge...

 

 A type of stinkhorn - possibly Lysurus mokusi.  See The Mushroom Expert website for more info on these amazing fungi.   Here is one just emerging - stinkhorns all start with an "egg".

Many stinkhorns have quite bizarre shapes - and at this point you might like to send the children out of the room - because in its 'prime' this particular fungus looks rather rude.

 La la 

dee

La la ...

One of nature's sillier jokes!

Been busy

Lots of sewing in the last week - including some shirts for grandson. With short sleeves in a classic stripe -





and long sleeves in tartan - this is a lovely light weight cotton fabric.






As grandson is left-handed I've placed the pockets on the RHside and because he likes to do up his buttons himself - "I can DO it" - I've used biggish buttons with slightly larger than normal b-holes. Buttons on the tartan shirt look like old-fashioned records (those black vinyl things) - they have different coloured 'labels' & I had fun matching the colours of the tartan :-)

Have also finally gotten back to that mega-project I started last year - to make an alphabet for the grands with knitted toys for each letter ... T is for turtle & tortoise and so I'm knitting a Sheldon a great pattern and I love the way he 'comes out of his shell' :-) but at this stage in his progress I think my Sheldon looked rather like a tick with a full tummy ...
On Sunday we went to the Leichhardt Public School Fete - because of the Tea Cosy competition. Lots of wonderful cosies - here are the children's















and the grown up's






Wonderful creativity. My Anna Karenina got a prize and I'm inordinately proud :-) Bought all sorts of things at the fete, 2nd hand books and clothes and a really big metal colander - which with a bit of adaptation will fit perfectly inside my dying pot - and make it much easier to dye roving / sliver without it felting up. Yea!

Well, I'll leave you with yet another native orchid flowering in the garden right now - Dendrobium falcorostrum (aka Beech Orchid) and it seems this is another orchid getting reclassified and getting another name Thelychiton falcorostrus all these names make our lovely native orchids sound like hardened criminals!

And this one is such a pretty thing - love the fancy shape to the tip of the labellum, like one of these { The scent is classic native orchid - sweet and powdery.

Native Orchids and a Witch

Well I didn't really Make these but our garden is really lovely at the moment with everything in bloom - the smell is a blend of jasmine, wisteria and Dendrobium speciosum (Sydney Rock Lily or King Orchid) - 2 big plumes of flower this year.

Also all the Dendrobium kingianum (Pink Rock Orchid) are out (some of these are crosses with D. falcorostrum (Beech Orchid)









I'm trying to de-stash my life a little - have been putting lots of hats up for sale on my Etsy shop and today I listed my Witch's costume. Had great fun modeling it for the photos.