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October 2003
OCTOBER MEETING October
13, 2003 October is Auction time! Our next meeting is going to be a little different. In years past we have had our annual auction at the annual picnic. We decided to have the Auction as its own event this time, and we choose our October meeting to do this. The auction will have two elements…the Live Auction and the Silent Auction. Members will be able to choose up to five plants to be auctioned (either live or silent) with 20% of the proceeds going to the society or one of several designations, and as many plants as they want at 100% donation to the society. The committee organizing the auction will pick out a few plants to be placed on the silent auction table. Members may write in bids on these chosen plants during the evening. Near the end of the night the auctioneer will stop the silent auction and announce the winning bids. Our esteemed auctioneer for the evening will be Mr. Richard Johnston with his lovely assistant Abigail Chang. Abby is a certified AOS judge, and her help will be very useful in identifying plants and explaining a few things about the orchids up for sale. Dick has a great voice and should be able to clearly call out the bids as they are made. It will be a wonderful event. To register for the auction, please fill out the form found in this newsletter, or find one at the auction. There are choices for the proceeds on the form, or you may designate another area of need on the form by writing it in. It is through events like these that our society is able to sponsor scholarships, add to orchid collections in the community, bring speakers and programs to our membership, and to have our own good time. Please join us for this lively event, and bring your checkbooks or bags of cash (sorry, no credit cards). For more information, please call Jerry Hoffmeister. Beginner's program (starts at 6:30 p.m.): No beginner's program this month. Plant Table: No plant table this month. Sales Table: No sales table; bring plants to the auction! Raffle: No raffle this month. NEXT MONTH November: Nina Rach, an AOS judge from Houston, Texas will speak tenatively on Stanhopeas. December: Christmas party, program TBD Got a suggestion for a speaker or program? November 2003 and most of 2004 is currently open and first vice president Jerry Hoffmeister is interested in knowing what you would like to hear about at upcoming meetings. E-mail at jerry@hoffmeisters.com or call him (206-932-9912) with your suggestions. THE MYSTERIES OF MAXILLARIAS
For a variety of reasons, Maxillarias are not well represented in most modern orchid collections, which provides me with a basic reason to choose them for study. There are a few knowledgeable experts around the world, but no monograph on the genus has yet been published, relationships remain fairly ill-defined. Further, many of the commercially-available plants are either wrongly-labeled or of unidentified species. Therefore, as well as collecting as many species as possible, trying to grow them well and trying to identify them properly, I maintain detailed written and photographic records. I am building a herbarium collection and I research published literature on the species and their history. This is not without difficulties. Many of the species descriptions are very basic and written in Latin or other foreign languages. The name Maxillaria was dervied from maxilla, the Latin word for “jaw,” based on the superficial resemblance of the lip joined to the column of the flower to the jaw of an insect. By coincidence, the genus Maxillaria was first described over 200 years ago by Hipolito Ruiz and José Pavón, the same explorers who described Anguloa and Masdevallia. Following their pioneering expedition to Peru and Chile (with Joseph Dombey, who is often forgotten), they published a brief description of the genus and of 16 orchid species which they placed in the genus. Only four of those remain classified as Maxillaria today: M. longipetala, M. platypetala, M. ramosa and M. prolifera. Ruiz and Pavón had prepared hand-written manuscripts intended for later publication giving more detailed information about the species, but the money which has been raised to pay for this was used instead to pay the army and the publication never appeared. It was a fascinating experience and a privilege to read these manuscripts and compare them with pictures of the few remnants of the original herbarium specimens which remain in the archives of the Reál Jardin Botanico in Madrid, Spain, and with the paintings of the plants done by artists who accompanied the explorers. This type of research is above and beyond what most amateur growers attempt, but it adds an extra dimension of interest and can be most rewarding. The territorial range of the genus covers most of South and Central America, Florida and the West Indies. Approximately 800 species are listed in the Index Kewensis. Some of these have been reclassified into other genera and still others represent synonyms, different names for the same species. New species continue to emerge, so it is impossible to know at present how many Maxillaria species currently exist. Currently, I have in excess of 100 species. Although the plants come from a wide range of environments in nature, from coastal forests to mountain tops, they seem forgiving in cultivation. Most grow well in an intermediate greenhouse, either in a rockwool/greenmix/perlite mixture or in spaghnum moss and perlite, fairly well shaded and with humidty around 70% or above. They are fed and watered year round. Good air circulation is important. Plants do take a little while to recover from shipment from the southern hemisphere and some species do not take kindly to repotting, particularly if divided. Vegetatively, there is an amazing variety of growth forms, from tiny pincushion plants to large clusters of pseudobulbs with long petiolate leaves, from fans of leaves and foliaceous bracts without obvious pseudobulbs to long, wandering rhizomes which head in all directions. Flowers vary from a few millmeters across to ten centimeeters or more and come in pure white through yellows, reds, purples to almost pure black, probably the nearest to black of any flower. Not all are scented, but some fill the entire greenhouse with perfume, from lily-of-the-valley, rose, melon, honey, menthol, cloves and cocanut through to even to less pleasant odors. Such variety is tantamount to growing a mixed collection within a single genus! Well, I’m hooked. Conservation of this large genus is becoming more and more important and I will do my best to make sure this diversity survives. – Dr. Michael McIllmurray FROM THE PRESIDENT Here it
is two meetings before the fall orchid show. Don’t forget to invite
all of your friends and neighbors. At the next meeting we will have a
poster for you to put up in your favorite tavern, eatery, grocery store,
laundromat or wherever you frequent in your neighborhood. Most establishments
have a place where they let clubs advertise. Here’s an idea I got
from someone in the Mushroom Society: Go to our web site and print out
a copy or two of our poster and tape them on your car windows. That way
wherever you go, you will be advertising our show. George Grantham is in charge of the display and is looking for anyone who would like to help in building the display. Right now one of the skills we wish to enlist is someone with carpentry skills who like to build things. Not only for the display, but I believe that Robin also has a project that involves a carpenter. If you are interested in helping contact George Grantham. Now is the time to start preening your plants to get them ready for the show, sale and auction. The auction will be the feature of our next meeting. I look at the auction as a very important function in our society because this is a place that we can keep the gene pool of our plants alive. Say you have this big cattleya that you just love. So you divide it and bring some of the pieces to the auction. Then later that plant gets bugs and dies. Well, you know someone in the society got a piece of your plant and that maybe there’s a chance you can get a division of it. By spreading our genetic diversity throughout our society we can keep some of our old favorites alive. You can auction up to five plants for your own personal gain and donate as many as you like. In the past, people have auctioned off books, plant stands and lights as well. Lyn Gundrum is retiring from orchid growing and has donated a halide light with extra bulbs and hood and several of her favorite orchid growing books (with all the important stuff underlined) for the auction. In order
for a person to auction plant you MUST be a member. We will have the new
roster (with its new easy to read wording, thank you Robin) at the meeting
to help determine who is current.The board decided at their last meeting
that anyone can bid, that is you don’t have to be a member, so invite
your friends. See you
at the next meeting! Jamie
Notman FALL SHOW NEWS It is hard to believe that the Show is nearly here. We have worked on this one for almost an entire year, and our team is in the final stages of details. The vendors are all set, the layout of the room is ready, and the posters are done. The committee will meet again to bring all of our tasks together and see what else we should do to make this the best show ever. I wanted to remind all of you that as current members you will be receiving a discount on your ticket to the show. We will be charging a $5 admission fee to our show and sale. Members will get a $2 discount on that entry. And volunteers get in free!! We will need a lot of volunteer help for this show. Not only will you have free entry to the show, but many of our volunteers also have the rare opportunity to be among the first to see the wares our vendors have to offer. You can buy before the general public can. Many of the members like to be there for the set-up and registration of plants on Friday so they can claim their treasures early. Let me know if there is a certain type of plant that you are looking for. It may be possible to ask our vendors if they have access to or even collections containing your requested plant that they could bring just for you. Sometimes members of our society ask me to invite particular vendors so they can add one plant to their collections that is typical of that vendor. I would be happy to ask our vendors on your behalf if there is a “must have” item. And, as always, our team would love to add more people to the committee. The time is well spent, and we always accomplish a lot at our meetings. We have an absolutely awesome group of dedicated people that take a piece of the task list and bring it all together in the end. It is an amazing transformation from a concept to a reality, and we do this well. We welcome anyone who is willing to help out. And there is always pizza at the meetings. – Robin Kemph, Show Chair ROSTERS AVAILABLE AT OCTOBER MEETING The 2003-2004 Membership Rosters will be distributed at the October meeting. The roster includes contact information for all members, information about the Society, NWOS bylaws and an updated list of available library books. Members who can’t make it to the October meeting will have their roster mailed to them with their November newsletter. IMPORTANT DATES OCTOBER
4-5, 2003 NOVEMBER
8-9, 2003 NOVEMBER
22-23, 2003 |
