Cymbidium eburneum (Burma)

[mrhappyrotter]

Cymbidium eburneum (Burma)

If you can't tell from the tag, I got this from Andy's! According to Andy's site, this variety is from Burma, apparently can have up to 8 flowers per spike, and although it needs a cool winter rest in order to bloom, it is heat tolerant. Sounds doable for North Carolina climate as long as it actually is heat tolerant.

This was one of my bucket list orchids for many years. Last year (2023), they showed up for sale on Andy's site, so I pounced. I'm drawn to fragrant flowers of all types, and I've read for years that this is one of the best smelling Cymbidium species.

Truthfully, I'm curious what others' opinions are on this being the "Burma" variety. The photo on Andy's site is more pink, and he mentioned that they can carry up to 8 flowers per spike. This flower looks pretty white to me (like standard C. euburneum) and this flower is coming out of the terminal end of the spike, there are no other buds or even the barest hint that maybe more had formed but blasted. Doesn't matter to me either way.

This is a medium-small Cymbidium. It's much smaller than a typical standard Cymbidium hybrid. The fragrance is nice, but not what I'd call super strong. Since the flower just opened, I'll wait a bit before I form a strong opinion. I was under the impression that these were powerfully fragrant, and "powerful" is not a word I'd use to describe it thus far. Maybe that will develop more over the course of the next few days. I'll also wait to describe it, but it's a bit perfumey and floral thus far, with notes of fresh cut grass. Granted, everyone's sense of smell is different.

I'm hardly qualified to discuss much about its culture, since I've only had it for a year, but here's my experience so far. This plant was grown indoors under LED lights from May 2023 until sometime in February this year under typical indoor temperature conditions. It was a single growth with a new lead when I received it last year, and has since grown up quite a bit. I did not expect it to bloom this year, so I did not attempt to give it a cool winter rest. However, in February 2024 I was convinced one of the "new growths" was actually a flower spike, so I moved it into my minimally heated greenhouse. Turns out my intuition was correct! Despite several heat waves in March and April where greenhouse temperatures reached upper 80s to low 90s (30+C) during the day, the spike continued to develop.

My plan is to grow this outdoors over the warm months, and then I'll likely keep it in the greenhouse during the winter. Daytime highs in summer can periodically exceed 100F (38C) and winter lows in the greenhouse are no less than 34F (1C) but typically a few degrees higher. We'll see how it goes. I did notice that the leaves are somewhat lighter green than most photos of C. euburneum I've seen online, which suggests that I may need to ramp up my feeding regimen and/or reduce light levels a bit. Not certain which or even if I should do both. Any ideas? I don't feed much in winter, but spring through early fall I feed my Cymbs pretty heavily. This was growing indoors under LED shoplights until I moved it into the greenhouse with 60% shadecloth so realistically the light levels haven't been that intense.

 

[Royal Rea]

Cymbidium eburneum will only ever have 1 to 2 flowers per spike. Interesting, the flower looks like an eburneum. But they can get to quite large plants. they are quite happy in my area growing all the year around outside (subtropical like Florida) and will always flower in early spring.

 

[jtrmd]

Years ago, when I had one. It was purchased from Andy's and labeled 'Burma'. Most it ever carried was 3 flowers on a spike. If it was a cool spring in MD it would be pure white with a hint of pink on the lip. Culture was outdoors after the risk of last frost (early May) in strong light, shaded most direct sun. Watered daily and Osmocote Plus 15-9-12. Then in October it would be transferred into the GH before the first frost.

 

[mrhappyrotter]

Years ago, when I had one. It was purchased from Andy's and labeled 'Burma'. Most it ever carried was 3 flowers on a spike. If it was a cool spring in MD it would be pure white with a hint of pink on the lip. Culture was outdoors after the risk of last frost (early May) in strong light, shaded most direct sun. Watered daily and Osmocote Plus 15-9-12. Then in October it would be transferred into the GH before the first frost.

I'm wondering if the "8" on Andy's site is a typo, and it was supposed to say 3. That sounds like a much more reasonable number of flowers for a variety of C. euburneum. Your growing conditions and culture sound like confirmation that my plans for growing this going forward will work.

 

[Ozpaph]

Is it a 'concolour/albinistic' form?

 

[mrhappyrotter]

Is it a 'concolour/albinistic' form?

I'm not really sure. I would say the flower is more white than how it appears in my photos, and there's really no hint of pink/red pigment in it anywhere that I can see. The photo on the Andy's Orchids website seems to show a lot of pink tinting in the flowers.

Others have suggested the color (or lack thereof) is down to cultural conditions. I'm assuming these are seed grown plants, so perhaps there's some variability in the offspring as well.

It was grown in average indoor temperatures through almost all of 2023, so the night temperatures in fall and early winter were probably much warmer than ideal. After I realized it was developing a spike, I moved it out into the greenhouse where it would have been getting overall cooler temperatures, but much less consistent and stable. That's because around here in spring and winter, one day can be well below freezing and the next day we can have summer-like temperatures. Anyway, I mention that because it's certainly plausible that the color was muted by warm temps during development.