Janet,


They are Cymbidiums.

I don't have my books on Chinese brush painting here with me (I like
the paintings, but I have no artistic skills), but the ones that I
have also give an indication on the time of flowering AND based on
that we would be talking about Cymbidium goeringii when they say
winter/spring and Cymbidium ensifolium when they talk about summer.
In my book Cym. goeringii is described, if memory serves me correct,

I feel Cymbidium kanran & sinense are too "large" when compared to the
brush paintings that I have seen and bought when in China.

Of course "our" latin names don't hold up much in China they al refer
to them as "lan hua", so actually you should be looking at what is
refered to as:

Section Lan (1 or rarely 2 flowers per inflorescence and more
fragrant):

Cymb. goeringii

Section Hui (5-7 flowers but less fragrant), and within this section
the small flowered ones and among those I think this should be an
almost complete list:

Cymb. lianpan, longibracteatum, ensifolium, nanulum, cyperifolium




kind regards,

Kenneth Bruyninckx
Akerne Orchids, Belgium

http://www.akerne-orchids.com


On Fri, 07 Nov 2003 13:31:45 -0500, Janet Price
wrote:

I've an odd question, but someone must know the answer. I've been
taking a course on chinese ink brush painting, and it covers how to
paint bamboo, plum blossoms, orchids, and chrysanthemums. I'm
interested in finding out just what kind of orchid this is.

It's described as a grass orchid or a marsh orchid, is probably
terrestrial since there are never any aerial roots. The leaves are
grassy. There seem to be one to several blossoms per bud stalk, with
the stalks having some kind of nodes on them and the blossoms hanging
from a short stem from these stalks. The flower has something that the
book refers to as stamens, but which are probably some kind of hair-like
things. Its center is drawn as a petal with a curved line coming from
one end and going perhaps 2/3 of the way to the other end.

The closest thing I've found is a calopogon of some sort, but they don't
appear to come from china. Pleiones and cymbidiums come from china but
they don't seem to fit the description.

Any ideas?


Janet Price