Impressive Phragmipedium Cardinale!

[Malipoense]

I posted the first bloom of this phrag a few weeks ago. The first bloom had nice quality with no recurving twisted petals, but color was a bit pale. The second bloom opened just today, and it's more fantastic than the first! Its pink color has intensified much more and it looks like the side petals still stay flat. I think it has great potential to get an award once it grows into a huge specimen. The flowers look almost exactly like schlimii. Also a plus, the whole plant itself is extremely compact, while older awarded cultivars have large foliage. It's less than a foot across and less than a foot tall. I made a collage of four pictures. Top left is my plant, top right is Ecuagenera's offering picture of cardinale, bottom left is the awarded cardinale specimen at the CIOS Speakers Day, and the bottom right is phragmipedium schlimii. You can see the resemblance between all of them.

 

[monocotman]

It’s very chunky looking. I wonder if polyploid parents were to make it?

 

[big923cattleya]

It appears to be a very nice flower but if you are looking for a flower quality award, foliage really does not enter into the equation. We look at the size, shape. inflorescence strength and form of the flower. On the flower quality score sheet, there is no place for points for the leaves of a plant or the compactness of a plant.
Size of the overall growths and condition of the leaves do enter into consideration when we look at culture awards though. As the name implies, culture awards are granted for just how well the plant grows. Those are awards given really to the grower. Has the owner done a fantastic job of growing a clean and beautiful specimen.

But you have an nice flower there. Grow it so when you take it in for judging you have 2, 3 or 4 spikes with uniform flowers. Hopefully they stack up well against recent past awards. You do that, and you will be ahead of the game. GOOD LUCK Malipoense!!!

 

[Malipoense]

Thank you big923cattleya!! It probably won't be too soon before it grows into a large specimen. The person who got the culture award for their cardinale at the CIOS Speakers Day grew it from a seedling for about 2-3 years, so hopefully mine is just as vigorous in the years to come!