"keith" wrote in message
...
is this phal more unusual or is it like the moth orchid(phal) common as
muck?I have never seen it for general sale.I suppose you would have to go
to
a specialised nursery .you all know how it is once you start collecting
orchids you start to want the more rare & something most others haven't

I am sure you won't be disappointed. Out of all the orchid vendors I have
met in southern Ontario (met by attending the shows of four out of five
orchid societies within an hour's drive of Toronto, SOOS being the largest),
I know only one who routinely has Phal species, while there are another one
or two who will occassionally have one or two of the more common species. I
know of Quebec endors only by virtue of email introductions by friends or
from their websites. There may well be others I haven't met, but ... But
there are lots who have a huge variety of phal hybrids, almost all of which
seem to have flowers dominated by species like amabilis or schilleriana or
other species with the almost round flower, or which seem to be tiny plants
apparently dominated by equestris-like species with the tiny, almost star
shaped flowers. The fact that with all the many orchid vendors in Southern
Ontario, I have found only one that routinely has phal species, and even
then there are lots of species even he has trouble finding, suggests that if
you build a collection of phal species, you will have trouble finding very
many others who have the same things. But I am sure that even this will
vary depending on where you are (I have no idea how easy it would be to find
phal species in the UK).

Cheers,

Ted