Some orchids and their look-alikes

Press, 21 November 1986, Page 14

Some orchids and their look-alikes

Gardeners 1 W DIARY

Derrick Rooney

A few interesting plants

— orchids and orchid-like things — have been flowering this week, and are worth noting.

Bletilla striata is a wellknown hardy ground orchid in cultivation. It comes from China, has a pleated leaf somewhat resembling that of the montbretia, and a biggish (by hardy orchid standards) rosy purple flower. There is a form with variegated foliage and (rare and expensive), a white-flowered form.

Less familiar, and flowering for me for the first time, is Dactylorhiza foliosa — “Madeiraknabenkraut” in German but, more euphoniously the Madeira orchid to you and me.

This orchid, although cultivated but never common in many countries, grows naturally only in Madeira and is the only member of the European genus Dactylorhiza to be found outside Europe and the Mediterrenean region. The rosy pink flowers, about 2cm across, appear in dense clusters at the tops of the stems, and while they may be smaller than those of the subtropical orchids popularised in florists’ shops

they can, if you take the trouble to peer, be seen to be no less beautiful.

Though it comes from the balmy latitude of the Canary Islands the Madeira orchid grows at a high altitude and is fairly hardy. Its natural habitat is in marshy mountain pastures, but in cultivation it appears to grow well in any soil that does not dry out completely in summer.

Giving the garden a bit of a ginger up is Roscoea cautleyoides another popup this week, and the earliest member in flower of a small genus in the ginger family of about half a dozen species from China and the Himalayas.

All the roscoeas have hooded, orchid-like flowers, and at a casual glance they could well be mistaken for orchids. With the exception of R. cautleyoides which is usually yellow, all have purple or purplish

flowers, ranging from tbimble size in R. alpina to 6cm or more across in R. humeama, which will be in flower in a few days. Its snouts were just poking through the ground last week-end. This is quite a spectacular plant, with large flowers on short stems in early summer. Afterwards the leafy stems shoot up to about 30cm and bear a remarkable resemblance to sweet corn. The colour of the flowers is cool purple (that description understates its charms, which are considerable). A few warm days will bring them out.

Two others, R. procera and R. purpurea, originally reached this country from British nurseries, flower in midsummer and brought with them a reputation for being easier to cultivate than the early comers.

Alas, both have proved unsuccessful in my garden, though I do still have a small clump of the tiny R. alpina, whose leaf tips are just poking through the ground.

The latter flowers in December after all the others have finished, usually grows only about

15cm tall, and despite its diminutive size is not without a certain jene sais quoi.

Moraea is another genus to which gardeners might pay closer attention. Of South African origin, it is a genus very close to the irises of the Northern Hemisphere — it was originally called iris, but hived off because the filaments of the flower are united at the base and the rootstock is a corm, not a bulb.

The species are legion. Many, from lowland areas, are frost tender in Canterbury but some very attractive ones come from higher altitudes and are hardy. The tallest, and hardiest grown here, is M. spathulata, which has large, bright yellow flowers on stems that may be more than a metre tall. It is a plant to be treasured in the border despite its long, narrow leaves which flop about all over the place. Moraea pavonia is

known as the "peacock iris” because of the brightly coloured markings on its light, bluish mauve flowers. It used to be much more readily obtainable from nurseries than it is now. I find it a rather infuriating, if beautiful plant, which grows and flowers sporadically, and occasionally takes a year or two off. Flowering well this week in the bulb frame, whose season is coming to an end, was Moraea edulls. I saw this described in a catalogue somewhere as a tall-grow-ing species, but what I have under the name is a small . plant with flat flowers about 6cm across and resembling a Louisiana iris, albeit in miniature. The colour is softest primrose yellow with a blue signal patch.

This moraea is a whitecollar flower — it folds up in the evening and is replaced by a fresh one the next day, continuing the succession until the supply of buds runs out