Orchid

Great info and video Craig!!! I will have better photos and info next rainy season!

The plants can produce male or female flowers (and occasionally hermaphrodite ones). It's often reported that higher light levels encourage female flowers, (which yours appear to be but, without a closer look I wouldn't swear to it) There doesn't seem to be any real agreement on this though, with some growers saying that temperature changes had caused male and female flowers on the same spike. Up close you'll see that male flowers have two curly appendages (one sometimes less visible) that act as a trigger when touched. The speed for one species was measured at faster than a pit viper strike! The male Euglossine bees that get caught up in these fly by shootings are knocked sideways by the force and learn not to revisit male flowers, which saves the orchid from wasting pollinia! There's a neat little video of the pollinia firing here: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?... but the best sequence I've seen is on the BBC's classic Private Life of Plants (every home should have one!!), which actually shows one of the bees getting it in slow mo.

Hey Craig, I don't know which sex my three Catasetum M. are. I wish I had more of a horticultural backround to give you the answer that you want. I am going to look into it and get back to you.

Wow! You are lucky indeed. These flowers seem to be the same sex. Do you know if they are male or female? The explosive pollinia on the males are amazing!

I look forward to seeing more of your orchids. I'm okay at orchid ID but we have some great experts on Noah, including one from Costa Rica - Jonathan Sequeira.

I am amazed that this is the first Catasetum Maculatum to be posted on the site! So lucky to be the first to share this magnificent specimen with all of you

I have many more on the property. However, I am not certain of their names. As each one flowers I will post. They are all indiginous species to tropical dry forest that we have here in NW Costa Rica.

Thanks for the info. You're so lucky to have these unique orchids growing on your property. Do you have many more orchids on your property? I look forward to more spottings. Welcome to Project Noah.

BTW the inflorescences are from two distinct plants growing side by side. Neither of the plants have been successful in reproducing as they never produce flowers at the same time

This particular plant was growing on a large dead branch in a Mango tree on my property. When the branch fell during the rainy season I transplanted this one at eye level on another tree on the property.

Catasetums are such weird looking orchids. Was this in the wild?