Aerangis fuscata (syn. umbonata)

Awesome species T. It's good to see that these are doing well for people. Looking forward to them becoming more established!

 

Very nice!! Thanks for sharing. This is a great blooming.

 

Really nice! Do you use shadecloth? You definitely have a fair number of 'reddish' Angs and you also seem to have great success with blooming. Makes me wonder if I should amp up the fake light. Some of your plants remind me of a woman's from New Zealand that used to post on a different forum. She and her fellow Anglican friend would grow theirs VERY bright but very dry and cool in winter. And they had plenty of good success as well. hmmmm.....

 

MrB, are you talking about Marg back from Species Specific? I remember going through all of y'all's posts when I was getting started.

 

I give mine less light, the leaves are dark green, but it is not a problem for it because it flowers every year...

 

Great plant Mr. B. Well done.

I grow mine shadier -- the leaves are dark green with just a reddish tinge to the edges. The plant flowers regularly -- this spring with multiple spikes. It would be interesting to see if I could get more flowers if I increased the light levels. And, this plant is fairly close to my hydrofogger, so it stays humid around it.

 

Sarah, thanks for giving me the credit on Robin's plant. I do feel that I deserve most of the credit for his success. ;-)

And Goods, yes, I was referring to Marg. It is a tragedy that she stopped posting. She is/was one of the great spreaders of Ang-lore in the web.

 

It really is a shame. I learned a ton from her posts back in the day. Have you heard from her since she stopped or is she totally MIA?

 

Gah! Sorry Robin! It is awesome and although he claims the credit I don't think Mike gets any on this one. Well done ROBIN.

 

I haven't heard from Marg in some years. I often wonder about her. I kind of recall some posts about her not too long ago on the SS forum but don't remember the specifics. Quite a few years ago it was posts by her and Theo (Mathias) on the UK forum that really kick started my obsession with Angs.

 

I love it! Mr. T it is.

I pity the fool who mistakes you for Mr. B.

 

What a beauty! This species has such great flowers. I can imagine what a pleasure it is to bloom this species.

T. migratoris, in all your posts you say that you grow your plants "warm" (and sometimes "very warm" if I am not mistaken) but you mentioned to me that the night temperature for most of the year (except for summer) goes down to 58°F (14.5°C), which is on the warm side of intermediate by my reckoning. Perhaps the reason you call your conditions "warm" is because of warm temperatures you have in the day time? For someone like me who is used to growing orchids under lowland tropical conditions, 58°F as the average night time temperature is very far from warm. For example in Honolulu, nights are between 68-75°F at night in the summer and between 62-68°F in the winter, but for the tropics Honolulu is considered cool, because Singapore, Bangkok and other truly warm places have much warmer summer and winter night temperatures. Might I suggest that terms such as "warm" or "intermediate" are misleading should ideally be accompanied by temperature ranges in our postings when possible.

I have had trouble with this species in my vivarium. Those in the Bay Area that I know who grow this species well (Marni Turkel, Judy Carney and others), all grow with nights dipping between 56-50°F (13.5-10°C) with days between 85-80°F (30-26.5°C). Botanica's greenhouse has variation in temperature depending on distance from the central heater, but the average night time low for most of the year is about 56-58°F, and their fuscata bloom beautifully. Up until recently, my vivarium has been on average between 64-66°F (17.75-20°C)at night and I can say that this species does not like it this warm. It does after all come from 1500m elevation in the Madagascar highlands.

Thankfully two months ago I got brave enough to move one of my plants to my cool house that drops to as low as 50°F (10°C) and I am very pleased to report that it has new root formation, new leaf formation and a flower spike initiating. I'm becoming convinced that this species resents night temperatures warmer than 60°F for most of the year.

Lastly, I would like to gently suggest that we all stop calling this Aërangis umbonata, when we now have the benefit of the taxonomic research carried out by Stewart and others that have concluded that umbonata is a heterotypic synonym for Aërangis fuscata. The reason fuscata has been a problematic epipthet in cultivation is down to the fact that both Fred Hillerman made the and Michelle Andriamanamihaja have called some type of spicata-like Aërangis species A. fuscata, when in fact fuscata is the true name for the very different umbonata.