George of the Jungle

When I was at the Foothills Orchid Society's annual show a couple of weeks ago, I bought a nicely mounted Leptotes unicolor to bring home.

I used to belong to the group in the late 1980s, and have had an orchid fixation since grade six, when I was junior bridesmaid at my cousin's wedding and she had a big Cattleya in her bouquet, which I caught.

(We also had a lot of orchids, including a vanilla, in the greenhouse when I was a docent at the Queens Botanical Garden when I lived in New York in the early-mid 1980s.)

As he's native to the Amazon basin, I thought "George" was an appropriate name. He's obviously happy in his new home (a small open-topped aquarium I've put rocks in the bottom of and poured water on to provide much-welcome humidity here in arid Calgary), as his subsequent root growth on the back of his 1.5-inch wide (37.5 mm) mounting stick is very obviously green and he's developed a nice little flower spike.

Despite his size, his flowers will be almost as big as his stick -- pretty amazing for such a small plant! Stay tuned for more pictures as he blooms.