Stanhopea wardii

 

Stanhopea wardii var. citrina inflorescence with five flowers

This species is native to Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela.  It grows in warm to cool cloud forests from 2600 – 5300 feet (800-1600 meters) in elevation.  It is one of the easier species of Stanhopea to grow outside here in southern California, and can take early morning sun and dappled shade the rest of the day.  This form is S. wardii var. citrina and has green/yellow flowers when they first open, almost chartreus in color.  The flowers later fade to a more burnt yellow or golden yellow color.  The standard form is a more subdued yellow color.  Both forms have a black eye spot on the upper hypochile that is a deep golden yellow color.  The fragrance of this Stanhopea is rather intense lemon/citrus at first.  After the flowers have been open for a few hours the fragrance lessens to a tart lime fragrance similar to crushed lime leaves.  It is a very pleasant and clean fragrance.  This seems to be consistent with the fragrance study done that includes limonene in some clones at 1.7%.; however, I have not detected the 1.8 cineole of 1-33% that would give it a Eucalyptus or camphor-like fragrance in this form.

 

Stanhopea wardii var. citrina close up

The flower is 2.8 to 3.1 inches (7.0 to 8 cm) wide but there are usually several flowers (7-10) on a given inflorescence.   The inflorescences can be quite long, up to 9 inches (22.9 cm) in length in many S. wardii forms.  Because the inflorescences are so long, this species can make a very nice specimen placed in a large basket that enables the inflorescences to grow out and down.  The leaves of this orchid are a thick and leathery, green with a slight blue-gray tint to them, and are 9 to 16 inches  (22.9 to 40.6 cm) long and 2.8 to 3.8 inches (7.1 to 9.6 cm)  wide.  This orchid is one of the more easily grown species of Stanhopea and are often readily available in the orchid nursery trade.  For me, S. wardii has been a reliable bloomer every year and easily produces several inflorescences.  These attributes make this Stanhopea a good candidate to grow for a beginning grower.



Stanhopea wardii var.
citrina bud


The buds that are close to opening have a fantastic flourescent chartreus color, and the reddish brown spotts on the sepals can be seen before the flower opens!



Stanhopea Resources

 

This list of resources is not intended to be all encompassing.  I have listed some resources that I think will be most useful to the Stanhopea grower.  If you know of a good resource, please feel free to post a comment so that other people can learn from your experiences.

Web Resources

Stanhopea Pages - Nina Rach's excellent page on the genus

Essence of Stanhopea - A fantastic blog full of information and photos of Stanhopea

Stanhopeas Aren't Finicky - This a a great beginners guide to growing Stanhopeas by Barney Greer

Stanhopea Passion - Fernand Faria's blog of Stanhopea photos and ecology - in French

Stanhopea Collection From Gabriel - Nice blog with species photos and cultural information

IOSPE - Orchid photo encyclopedia that also has descriptions - search on Stanhopea

Orchid Board - This is a Catasetum and Stanhopea Alliance forum - you can search for Stanhopea posts

Foxdale Orchids - A rather good series of photographs of Stanhopea species and hybrids.

Books

The Stanhopea Book - Rudolf Jenny's excellent monograph of the genus Stanhopea.

The Astonishing Stanhopeas - Barney Greer's book on the culture of several Stanhopea species grown in Australia.

Publications

Dodson, C.H. and G.P. Frymire. 1961. Preliminary Studies in the Genus Stanhopea (Orchidaceae), Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden v. 48 (2) pp. 137-172. May .

Dondson, C.H.  1963. The Mexican Stanhopeas.  American Orchid Society Bulletin. pp 115-129. February.

Jenny, R. 1993. The Genus Stanhopea.  American Orchid Society Bulletin. pp 1270-1276 December.

Kennedy, G.C. 1975. The Stanhopeas of Mexico.  Orchid Digest.  pp 178-182 Sept.-Oct.

Kimnach, M. 1978. The cultivation of Stanhopeas. AOS Bulletin 47(9): 784-794.
 

Kraus, L. 1984.  The culture of Stanhopeas – “Confessions of a Requited Lover”. AOS Bulletin 53(4): 358-366.

Plant Sources

 There are too many suppliers of orchids to list them all, so I would suggest the following website where you can search for orchid nurseries nearest to your location.  This site also has some good lists of websites and blogs for orchids as well:

Orchidwire
 

Stanhopea tigrina var. nigroviolacea 'Predator'

S. tigrina var. nigroviolacea 'Predator" with two new flowers opening.

Awesome is an adjective that I like to use to describe this orchid.  It is one of my favorite varieties of Stanhopea that I usually place with S. tigrina var. nigroviolacea.  This orchid has some of the darkest and most intense oxblood, to almost black color on the petals and sepals.  As the grex name implies it is named after a favored cinematic alien invader that hunted humans.  The comparison of the photos here will allow you to make up your own mind…..they do resemble each other to me!

S. tigrina var. nigroviolacea 'Predator' with
four inflorescences open.

This plant is one of my older specimens and I re-basketed it last year.  Since I had purchased it over 10 years ago, it consistently provided me 2 inflorescences each year until last year when it only had one flower.  This year it has rewarded me with nine inflorescences and four have opened all at once.  This orchid has a strong fragrance that is very intense in the cool of the morning until about 11:00 a.m.  A large plant such as this one can produce several inflorescences, and the fragrance of the flowers can be so intense that it can be detected 20 feet away from the plant.  Some people find the fragrance too strong, and almost intoxicating!  The fragrance of these orchids is often described as chocolate and vanilla.  The major component of the fragrance of this orchid and several other Stanhopeas is phenylethyl acetate which can often provide a floral, fruity, or Liqueur-like fragrance.

 

Stanhope tigrina is a sturdy plant for southern California and is not only one of the showiest species in the genus, but is rather easy to grow.  It can often take early morning sun along the coast without burning and dappled shade the rest of the day.  Average fertilizer and water throughout the year are all it demands.  This is one species that can easily be placed in a large basket because the inflorescences can reach over 8 inches in length (20 cm) and can easily grow out of larger baskets.  These orchids produce the largest flowers in the genus and can approach 6 inches (15 cm) in width.  The leaves are tough and leathery 10.0 -12.5 inches (25.4-31.8) cm long and 3.3-4.5 inches (8.3-11.4) cm wide.

Here is another of my attempts at timelaps photography of Stanhopeas.  I was only able to get the last half of these two flowers opening.  It is difficult to get to the flowers before they open in the morning, so I had better be up at 4:00 a.m. for the next chance.