is this a cymbidium?

[wisechild9]

My mom gave me her orchid since she had it for a few years and it hadn't bloomed, so now I'm giving it a try. However, I don't know what kind it is. I am attaching photos. So here are my questions:

1) is this a cymbidium?
2) all the bulbs seem to be growing sideways and it is occupying a lot of room because it is growing sideways. Is this normal?
3) could i repot these and try to get them to grow more vertically? I could try to divide two of the bulbs (I think there are 5).
4) there are black spots on the leaves. do you think this is a disease? i am keeping this new orchid away from all my other plants (hence it is in the bathtub)

I am planning to put this outside on my north-facing balcony. Temperatures in Vancouver are now about 10 - 21 degrees Celsius. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Charlene

[Anton]

No, definately not, more than likely a catt.

A cym has more rounded pseudo bulbs, and the leaves are narrower.

Don't have any close ups, but hopefully you can get an idea from these plants.

[DDS2007]

nop , not a cym . but i don't know what else could it be.
good thing to keep it quarantined for the present time
here's a pic showing cym pseudobulbs close shot

[kmarch]

Hello and welcome to the forum!

Originally Posted by wisechild9

My mom gave me her orchid since she had it for a few years and it hadn't bloomed, so now I'm giving it a try. However, I don't know what kind it is. I am attaching photos. So here are my questions:

1) is this a cymbidium?

No it's not a Cymbidium. It lookslike a Zygopetalum of some kind to me. I found three Zygo culture sheets that seem pretty good to me.

Zygo Culture 1
Zygo Culture 2
Zygo Culture 3

Originally Posted by wisechild9

2) all the bulbs seem to be growing sideways and it is occupying a lot of room because it is growing sideways. Is this normal?

Usually Zygo growths grow up. I don't know why these have grown sideways. Sometimes orchids do strange things when reaching for light. Give the culture sheets a good read and if you follow the directions regarding light requirements the new growths will probably start growing up like normal.

Originally Posted by wisechild9

3) could i repot these and try to get them to grow more vertically? I could try to divide two of the bulbs (I think there are 5).

Do you know when it was last repotted? The mix looks ok from the pic so there's probably no hurry to repot. There's certainly no reason to divide the plant. The existing growths won't change and point up, but new ones may grow up.

Originally Posted by wisechild9

4) there are black spots on the leaves. do you think this is a disease? i am keeping this new orchid away from all my other plants (hence it is in the bathtub)

Zygos often get black spots ontheir leaves, especially if the leaves are damp when it is cool or if the humidity is very high. Unless the spotting is severe (yours is not) don't worry about it.

Give the sulture sheets a good read and let us know if you have more questions.

Happy growing!

[fred]

I also think you are a proud owner of a Zygo

I have enclosed a close up of a Cym for you just to show you.

[kmarch]

Originally Posted by Anton

No, definately not, more than likely a catt.

Anton.... (good natured jabbing) shame, shame (finger wagging). With as many Zygos as we see here in Australia, you should know that's not a Cattleya. At our last club meating it seemed like half the blooming plants there were Zygos.

[Anton]

OK here's a cym, zyg, colmanara (Ondontocydium), coelogyne, iwangaara to see the differences. similar but different.

Didn't look like a Zyg to me Kevin.

[fred]

Looking good Anton

[hort_power]

I may be a Novice, but it looks more like a Lycaste to me.
Hort Power

[kmarch]

Lycaste bulbe are much more round and fatter. This is a Zygo.

[Anton]

I concure, Kevin is correct after some careful consideration on my behalf.

[pikevi]

Anton: Thanks for the set of photos depicting the differences. It is very useful to us novices.

I have downloaded them for future comparison(s).

I am an unintentional beneficiary of the ongoing discussion.

[Anton]

Well I thought that they would be of use PIKEVI, as they are all similar, except for the cym.

Hmm, may be a project for me to work on, an Acrobat file with images of the various leaves and psuedobulbs of various species.

[gerneveyn]

Anton, why did you cut the leaves on some of those cyms in the group shot?

[wisechild9]

Thanks for all the advice, and the other photos. I think a gallery of images of leaves and pseudobulbs would be great - for a newbie that sees an orchid that isn't in bloom, I had no idea how to identify this one, and would probably have treated it the same way I treat my phals.

[PhalPal]

DDS - nice looking shot of your cym pseudobulbs with a good looking new growth!

[pikevi]

Anton: That will be really nice.

It is still confusing to me to diffentiate the types by looking at the leaves/pseudobulbs/plants

[kmarch]

pikevi,

It can be difficult to tell non-blooming orchids apart. However, (and i may be over generalizing a bit here) one can frequently tell what alliance a plant is from or in some cases which genus it is from by looking at the plant habit.

You've probably noticed in some threads where people are asking for an ID, that we'll say someting like, "You've got some kind of Oncidium," but we can't be more specific than that. There are groups of plants (usuallt related genera) that have similar plant habits. An example of this would be Cattleya, Laelia, Sophronites, and their hybrids (Lc, Sc, Sl, Slc). Their plant habits are all similar and so we often say, "It's some type of Cattleya," or, "It's a Cattleya alliance," or, "Cattleya-type" plant. It can be difficult to be more specific.

Maybe we should post some sort of plant habit tutorial thread. Would members find that useful?