My son, Jason, has been writing some great blogs for us lately about all sorts of plants. Check out our main blog page in case you have missed any of his posts. Today, I wanted to chime in and highlight two of the finest orchid species there are, the Cattleya percivaliana and Cattleya trianaei.

Cattleya percivaliana and Cattleya trianaei, perhaps two of the finest orchid species there are. Cattleya trianaei hails from Colombia whereas percivaliana hails from Venezuela and rarely found in Colombia. These two species are part of a trio of plants that includes Angraecum sesquipedale and are all known as Christmas orchids, due to the fact these always flower just before, during or a bit after the holiday season. The plants we have grown here at Orchids Limited are the culmination of many years of work and observation. These are some of our high end plants that often attract serious collectors.

Cattleya percivaliana 'Carol of The Bells'  ('Jungle Best' x 'Summit' FCC/AOS)

Cattleya percivaliana is a fantastic orchid with deep purple flowers and an elongated trumpet shaped-lip that has intense colors of deep yellow and very dark purple to burgundy. There is a wonderful aromatic fragrance of citrus with a slight tangerine scent. When we have dozens of these in flower in our stud house, it is a spectacular sight! The flowers last about 4 weeks and can vary a bit in shape and color. There are coerulea (blue) ones as well and albescens variety with a hint of pink and an alba variety that is white with yellow in the lip.

Bench of blooming Cattleya percivaliana at Orchids Limited

It used to be that the flowers on these plants were quite small, being half the size of a trianaei, but through our intensive breeding program, we have managed to get the size up to equal or just slightly smaller than trianaei. We have used excellent parents to create one of the best groups of percivaliana available anywhere. One cross we made in 2007, ‘Jungle Best’ x ‘Summit’ FCC/AOS, yielded giant well-shaped flowers that had flowers 15-17 cm in size! After we saw the first plant flower from this cross, we decided to keep them all and flower them out to pick the best. They turned out to be really good and we have grown them up over the last 12 years and have divided them this past year. Divisions of these very select plants are now available and are in-bud or sheath to flower this year. These are living works of art and took a lot of investment in time and knowledge to produce. There are also a number of really fine seedlings that should not be overlooked as in coming years, they too will yield great things. 

Cattleya trianaei 'Select V'

Cattleya trianaei (pronounced tree-an-ee) has the longest lasting flowers of any Cattleya and can last for up to 5 weeks or more. The large flowers are really stunning and can be 6-8" in size. The flowers have a crystalline look to them and really sparkle in the light. The color range is quite amazing with deep purples, pastel pinks, white flowers with yellow in the lip and coerulea (blue) ones as well. Some flowers have feathering or flares in the petals. There are some semi-albas too with white petals and sepals and a three color banding to the lip. These usually flower around the December holiday season or into the New Year.

Bench of blooming Cattleya trianaei at Orchids Limited

We have carefully grown and flowered these plants, and now offer the best selected divisions after 12-15 years or more of growing. We also offer a number of trianaei seedling crosses that we know will yield outstanding flowers.

View our Cattleya percivaliana selection.

View our Cattleya trianaei selection.

Please note that these are high value plants, for some other Cattleya options, sorted from low to high price, please click here.

Happy Growing,
Jerry Fischer