This week’s Orchid of the Week is… Cym. Sundaani Princess
Parentage: This weeks Orchid of the Week is a cross between Cym. Sundaani Storm × Cym. Lady Tracy
Registered: 2019
The reason why it’s our Orchid of the Week:
This week’s Orchid of the Week is new breeding from Sundaani. Which happens to be just 25 minutes down the road from where I live in South Australia.
Unfortunately it’s not a flower you will ever see win anything on the show bench, however from the beginner to the intermediate grower, this one has both an eye catching colour and a perfume! A great orange colour and a lovely red lip make this one stand out right across the other side of the greenhouse and contrast beautifully against the green foliage. And I’m so pleased about the perfume. Quite strong and pleasant.
I managed to get hold of a compot of what was originally five plants, however, it was so overgrown, I couldn’t actually tell where one plant ended and the other began! It was bursting out of the pot so badly it was split in two places! There were two flower spikes in the compot, and just to illustrate again the differences and variation you get with seedlings, a photo of the other flower is here.
A very different lip colouration and the petals and sepals are a little washed out, however, still a pretty flower, but again, one to enjoy and show off without thinking there might be an award at the end. Unfortunately with this second one though, there is no perfume……which is disappointing.
Although I wouldn’t have necessarily obtained the plant given my species obsession, my wife loves it, and the seedling variation, so it’s a keeper! We can’t wait to see the variation in the other seedlings when they flower. It also appears it is a half decent cut flower too, having lasted a few weeks already off the plant. This is pleasing to see given Cym. tracyanum makes up a decent part of it’s recent heritage, and the inability for Cym. tracyanum cut spikes to last more than a few days….
I’m also not planning on using this one in breeding, instead just flowering it for my wife! But I do wonder what would happen if it was crossed back onto Cym. tracyanum or another worthy perfumed flower.
Looking back at the original species ancestors of this plant, using Orchid Roots, Cym. insigne, Cym. tracyanum, Cym. ensifolium, Cym. insigne and Cym. lowianum are the major contributors present in the distant background with a little of a lot others thrown in too.