PlieoneCulture

These lovely plants always prove to be quite intriguing & I for one have always marveled at how these plants always seemed to be at the same stage of flowering, & all looking in the correct direction at the same time when I have seen them at shows etc. The following are some notes & a timetable on their culture & planting etc that have been supplied by Trevor Gilbanks.
    At one of our club meetings some time back Trevor gave us a little yarn about how these plants got their name. Loosely translated it went something like this, these plants were named after “Pleione”, from Greek mythology, who was the mother of Plaids, that’s what her & Atlas (the dude that was doomed to cart the world round on his shoulders) referred to their seven daughters as collectively.
Any way these seven raven haired beauties were being pursued by “Orion” the hunter (bit of a stud by all accounts), & they called out to “Zeus” because he was a bit magical although not all that bright, & they said please disguise us as blonde birds. Not a problem he says, snaps his fingers & they all turned into Doves, this didn’t excite the girls a lot, but as “Orion” wasn’t a pigeon fancier, he lost interest & went on his way.
The girls or doves as they were now approached “Zeus”, & said listen dork, our aim is to become “stars” (Hollywood bound they were when “Orion” showed up you see), “Oh I’m sorry”, he said, snapped his fingers again, & turned them into celestial bodies, & there they remain even to this day, they appear each Northern Spring & signal the approach of good weather. ( “Pleione” didn’t do much with her life, that’s why the yarn was about her daughters, much more interesting!)
Wonderful story & many thanks Trevor.
Pleiones
Taken from the notes of Trevor Gilbanks -

   The Pleiones are cool to cold growing orchids that are very large & showy considering the size of the plant.
Distribution
    They are found naturally in the South East Asian area in an area that covers Napal, North India, Bhutan, Burma, South China, Thailand, Laos & Taiwan & grow at elevations ranging from about 600 metres to 4200 metres, give or take a couple of metres. Many of these areas are snow covered during the winter.
These plants, all being shallow rooted, have a large range of natural habitats from tree branches, rocks, fallen logs, cliff faces, & occasionally grasslands. All of these habitats have one thing in common, that is they are all free draining.
Derivation Of Their name
    Well I think we have covered that one already, but Pleiones are also known as Indian Crocus or Window Sill Orchids & belong to the subtribe of Coelogyne. There are approximately 16 species & more than 150 hybrids.
Plant habit
     Pleiones have a distinct dormancy period. The fall of leaves from the trees is a good indicator to signify that watering of these plants should cease, in preparation for their winter rest. At the beginning of their growing season the old pseudobulbs will put out one or two shoots from the bottom of the bulb, initially the flowers will be produced & when these collapse the base of the stem will thicken & form the new pseudobulb that will have one or two leaves, & the old pseudobulb will wither. By the end of autumn the growth of the new pseudobulbs be complete & the leaves will yellow & drop off.
Roots
   At the beginning of the growing season, usually as the flower collapses, each new shoot will produce about ten to twelve new roots. These roots, which stay close to the surface of the growing medium, will grow to about 250mm long.
   The roots of the Pleione do not branch like other orchids, & because of this it is important to make sure that the root system does not suffer any setbacks. The root growth can suffer damage by the bulbs being loose in the growing medium, by inconsistent watering or the roots becoming jammed up.
The adage “If you can grow the roots, the rest of the plant will be happy” is particularly true for Pleiones!!