Back in April of 2008, Pyro & Barry worked together to share a bunch of
U. humboldtii seeds. Not long after, I was able to get a few tiny plants from someone who decided they weren't interested in them. They grew very slowly for some time. At some point, I repotted the most robust clone into a 4 x4 netpot of live LFS. This combination of live LFS & netpot had worked great for most of the other Orchidioides - so I figured I'd try it. The plant lived but never thrived for several years. During this time, I allowed a few runners to colonize the live LFS & general muckiness in the bottom of the 75 gal tank (more on this in a minute). I finally tired of the plants struggles and planned to toss it out - but on a whim, I stuck the netpot in a small plastic tub of water & plopped it on my east-facing windowsill (had nothing to lose since I was going to toss it anyway - right?). I never figured that it would handle both the heat of the summer sun as well as the very low humidity of the winter. To my surprise, those tough paddle-leaves not only handled the rough environment but gave me two stalks of flowers the following spring (here's a
pic). A few weeks ago, I noticed that it was sending up another one for this year's spring flowering (it's hidden in the paddles somewhere).
While the rough windowsill conditions make for a less-than-optimal plant, it's amazing what these 'delicate' plants can actually handle. Here's a pic from earlier today. Some of the leaves have been there for over a year. I could make it more attractive by hacking off the half-dead leaves but I allow them to stay as they're still providing energy to the main plant (check out the cool scissor-leaf in the back) .
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The stolons that 'escaped' to the bottom of the 75 gal morphed into a plant that really liked what it found. For years it has put up it's paddles between all the other pots - but never flowered. The paddles it puts up are quite huge (imo). This one is roughly 18" (46 cm) tall.
Based on the windowsill plant, I figured that it must need the seasonal clues that the original plant now gets on the windowsill (changing daylength & temperatures). A month or two ago, the plant decided to prove that theory wrong & send up a stalk. As you can imagine, keeping the stalk out of the lights was an adventure. It's now been flowering for a few weeks and is a bit over 4 feet long (& is once again almost in the lights --- aaargh). The flowering end of the stalk (at least two lower blooms have already dropped off)
I would love to be able to duplicate the conditions the plant likes from the bottom of the tank in a more controlled setting (ie: in a pot) but haven't been able to find the magic sauce. After multiple mediocre years in various pots, I unleashed my broadleaf clone into the live LFS of my 40 gal tank last year. It's now colonized about 75% of the tank.
Years ago, I copied elgecko & placed a
pot of U. longifolia in a jar of water. While interesting, the overall experience was underwhelming as the bladders were very small & the curvature of the round jar caused distortion if I tried to take a pic or look very closely at the bladders. To address those deficiencies, I made some small, mini-tanks for the 4 x 4 netpots that I normally use. Last fall, I planted a piece of the broad-leaf U. humboldtii in one & placed it on the windowsill. Hopefully, over the next year or three, I'll get to see some large bladders & then maybe even a flower (currently the plant has just started to send a few rolons into the water column beyond the pot). When there are enough bladders in the water (especially large ones), I'm planning to get some daphnia for food ...
Here's an empty tank & netpot
Later edit:
.... and I created a
separate thread as a followup to this post - showing the humbo bladders and a captured mosquito larvae.