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A garden enthusiast who loves to travel and capture the beauty of places and freeze the memories of her travels in photographs, as well as document her experiences in verse...thankful for the simple pleasures in life.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Miniature or compact?

I can't tell if my cattleya that I'm featuring today is a miniature or a compact cattleya. I have posted about this plant before...whenever it blooms, I can't help but take lots of photographs. However, I have never found out its actual name. So I went surfing the orchid websites and was amazed at the mindboggling hybrids and clones that are part of the family of "small-sized" cattleyas. Excuse me for making up my own category...that is necessary because I am now totally confused as to what kind of small-sized cattleya mine is. 


I assumed mine was a miniature, fondly referred to by orchid aficionados as Mini-catts. That's a cute-sounding name.I was going to settle for that term for my catt. Then I read that these plants grew up to only about 5 inches tall, and no taller. Mine are a good 3 to 4 inches taller. Then I saw that there was a category termed 'compact' cattleyas. These are said to grow up to a height of 12 inches. Mine has remained about 8 to 9 inches all these years. Mine should be a 'compact', then. They seem to fit the requirements for admission to the Com-catt category. Com-catt flowers are said to be large. I took a tape measure out into the garden to ascertain the size, and the reading across the flower from the tip of the petal at one end to the tip of the petal  at the other end, read 9 cm. Yup, could be a compact. I was however quite unhappy that I couldn't refer to my flower as my 'Mini-catt' anymore. Com-catt sounds like what you would name a telecommunications satellite. But wait, maybe mine is not a Com-catt after all. It could be a Stan-catt! Standard cattleyas have the growth pattern of compact cattleyas, and they have strong stems that carry 5 or more flowers! I ran back out and counted...mine had 6! I read again, and it said that Standard cattleya plants 'will mature at 12 to 24 inches tall'. I guess mine is still immature, a Stan-catt acting like a little catt.I'll just call it Mellow Yellow Catt. End of search.












Note that I have still not found out the botanical name of this flower. I would be so glad if someone would ID this cattleya for me.


* After-post Note: I knew that one person could easily identify the cattleya for me, and I was right. I sent an SOS to Orchid de Dangau and he immediately emailed me with the ID. How great is that? You can see lovely photos of orchids at his blog. Thank you Makarimi!


Here's what my cattleya answers to from now on, a lovely name for a lovely catt:

Chanchai Gold

She is a cattleya allied hybrid, a potinara (Pot.), and her full name is
 Pot. Thi Ti 'Chanchai Gold'.
Linking to:
Mosaic Monday
Macro Monday
Today's Flowers
SOOC

Yellow, Mellow Monday

20 comments:

  1. What vibrant colour! They almost look like a daffodil crossed with an Iris. What ever they are they are just stunning!

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  2. By any name these are absolutely gorgeous. Great macro shots!

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  3. Fantastic flowers ...... great shots with very nice details ...
    LG: Karin

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  4. wow! this is such an amazing photo....i love the color :)

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  5. Great photos of such pretty flowers. Thank you so much for sharing them.

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  6. These orchids are gorgeous. I like the red lips.

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  7. I think they're called pretties!

    k....

    <-- definitely NOT a wealth of information when it comes to plants....

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  8. Those are beautiful flowers! Wow!

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  9. Congrats, Rosie! Your caption has been selected and is being posted today!

    http://onenezz.blogspot.com/2011/08/caption-counting-calories.html

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  10. beautiful color flower...nice shot...

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  11. GORGEOUS! love the all the photos!
    I like the title of your blog, sweet and very romantic!

    Cheers and blessings,
    Tess @life is beautiful

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  12. THe color is lively, it is good to the eye.

    SAHM’s Online Diary

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  13. OMG this is pretty and gorgeous!! I so love the colors too!

    MYM

    Macro Monday

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  14. These are gorgeous!
    The yellow and red colors are lovely!

    Thanks for your visit this week. I'm afraid I'm a little behind in visiting. :)
    Hope you're having a wonderful week.

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  15. Rosie,
    You have a treasure trove of blog postings. All are sweet to the eye and alluring. They are educational in a lot of ways.

    Hank
    P/S Thanks for droppinh by!

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  16. Hi Rosie,

    This is cattelya allied hybrid, which is call potinara (Pot.). The name of this orchid is Pot. Thi Ti 'Chanchai Gold'. Thanks for dropping to my blog and comments ;)

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  17. Hi Rosie,
    Thanks for mentioning my name and my blog. It is just a small matter. Once again TQVM.

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  18. Beautiful photos of a beautiful variety of cattleya. Love the color combination, it is so unique. Pretty nice to have it on the porch for everybody to see.

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  19. Those were some lovely photos! Congrats on your garden!

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It is always a pleasure to read your comments. I shall certainly try my best to jet over to your blog and catch up with you there.