Hi Joanna,

I love it when two threads can be tied together. I posted a couple of
pictures of a plant to abpo that I think fits the bill for flower activity.
I bought the plant as Paph chamberlainianum var. sumatra, but I think Cash
would define it as Paph victoria-regina. What ever you call it, a single
bloom spike will keep blooming for years. In the plant photo the spike with
the bud is the older spike. Each bracket on the spike shows where a flower
has been. The older spike has 22 brackets and an active tip. At two months
per bloom, this spike has been in continual activity for almost four years
now. Get this, a cross made with a flower on the older spike is now coming
out of bottles while the spike still blooms on.

I grow a couple different species from the subgenus Cochlopetalum and must
say that moquettianum, liemianum, and victoria-regina are very similar, but
you can tell them apart. Do the differences justify different species?
Haha, I'm just a farmer. But what really makes this subgenus so hard is all
the different names that are and have been used for registration and on
labels. When in doubt just call it a chamberlainianum and 99.5% of the
people will not give you a hard time. All that being said, of the three
species above, only victoria-regina blooms for over a year on a single spike
for me. I do not have a glaucophyllum, but have heard it too has a very
long bloom time but has smaller flowers. (yes they look similar to the
species above and in fact some people consider mosquettianum a variety
glaucophyllum while others consider glaucophyllum a subspecies of
victoria-regina).

Pat


"J Fortuna" wrote in message
news:bLUDd.1044$C.659@trnddc05...
I have been thinking that the orchids that I enjoy the most are the ones
with the most frequent activities.

What I count as activities include spiking, new branch, new bloom, fading
bloom, new growth, new leaf, kiekie, new aerial roots, etc. -- so I define
activities fairly loosely, if it changes frequently, that's good in my
book.
I was wondering if anyone could recommend to me additional species or
hybrids that I should look at that also exhibit a frequent activity level.
The main caveat is that my light is low to medium at best, and I can
handle
only warm growers that do well in windowsill culture.

Among my favorites that have frequent activities that I have thus far:

Dtps Talitha's Gem (sequential)
Paph Amelia Hart Alexander (sequential)
phal equestris (really neat and very active species, sequential, blooms
more
than once a year, hopefully will kiekie, etc.)
paph malipoense (though it is in spike forever, not a week goes by without
it changing significantly, it's intriguing)

Any additional suggestions will be appreciated, and may go on my wish
list.
:-)

Thanks,
Joanna