RHS Orchid Committee award FCC

A splendid specimen of Phragmipedium kovachii 'Trinity' was awarded a First Class Certificate (FCC) by the RHS Orchid Committee at their meeting in September 2011. The plant was grown and exhibited by the Eric Young Orchid Foundation, Jersey, which specializes in developing and maintaining a world class collection of orchids.

Phragmipedium kovachii is a recent discovery, having been found in 2001 for sale on a stall in Peru by American orchidist Michael Kovach. Its glorious, richly coloured blooms grow to a large size and it has already been used to produce interesting hybrids.

The RHS made its first award to an orchid in 184l but the first FCC was awarded in 1859 to Macodes petola. An FCC is rarely awarded and only to plants of outstanding excellence. A life-sized painting is produced of all RHS Orchid Committee awarded plants, the collection now numbering some 7,000 paintings.

John Gay, a member of the RHS Orchid Committee, has written about his experiences hunting for Phragmipedium kovachii in the December 2011 issue of The Orchid Review, 119 (1296): 234-245.

Details of all RHS awarded orchids can be found in the OSGB Journal and The Orchid Review.

Phragmipedium kovachii 'Trinity'

Night-flowering orchid discovered

An orchid that blooms exclusively at night has been discovered on New Britain, an island near Papua New Guinea. Bulbophyllum nocturnum was discovered by Ed de Vogel, a Dutch botanist during a field trip into lowland forest. The findings have recently been published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society by him and his co-author, Andre Schuiteman, an orchid expert from the RGB, Kew.

The flowers of Bulbophyllum nocturnum open after dusk and wither before sunrise but this was only discovered once the plant was being studied  in the Netherlands. The genus Bulbophyllum is the largest in the orchid family with over 1,800 extraordinary species.

Bulbophyllum nocturnum
(Photo by Andre Schuiteman)