Calypso Orchid

The second year after a drought...

2011-04-24T23:03:00.000-07:00

I am preparing to offer Calypso orchid bulbs for limited sale this September 2011. This has been a great year for Calypso orchids. Since work on this project began in 2005 this is the best so far. I have reports from other folks that this is true as well. I have begun building a fence around my densest Calypso habitat as this one step alone seems to benefit the plants greatly. This past year, 2010, is the first I can say with some confidence that seed I introduced has made first year bulbs. I will be selling these young bulbs that I believe I grew myself from the hundreds present.

When I returned the unsold 2008 seed to the habitat with the first rain in September of 2009 I was pretty disgusted with the whole project. None of my efforts had seemed to produce any verifiable results. I shook the seed jar in a gallon jug of rain water and dumped it unceremoniously where I was standing in the grove of redwoods. No traipsing about with the ladle dripping orchid seed hither and yon with my blessings. I just swirled the half gallon of water and flung them on the forest floor. October 2010 the spot I threw the seed is a dense mat of young Calypso. I now think it is important not to disturb the soil prior to sowing as it kills the fungus. All previous attempts had been in built beds using native material. The two oldest of those are now pushing up plants very sparsely. They are both about three years old and I will sow them again this fall without disturbing the bed. The few plants in the old beds may be from my early attempts or may be from feral seed. The new sowing will be in straight lines as that is the best I can do to indicate I had a hand in the matter.There has been quite a gap in my postings here...2 1/2 years. Hard to believe.

Calypso orchid growing on roof without soil.

2011-04-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

A picture is worth a thousand words. Somewhere else on the web is a photo of Calypso growing in a wooden raingutter. This one has no earth contact. It is conceivable in the other photo that the fungus was present from the wood earth contact of the old cabin. This is a metal trailer on rubber wheels. I find it very interesting!

Calypso Orchid in the News

2008-11-12T20:12:00.000-08:00

I am finally posting the link to the article that was in the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle Garden Section. I was quite thrilled and here it is...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/19/HO0HVIC67.DTL

The Calypso are emerging and the rains are here. I am more than ever enjoying the cloud mist here in the forest. It collects on the trees and drips to the ground. The weed season has begun in the garden. It is green and wet here in the winter and brown and dry in the summer.

The 2008 Calypso Orchid seed is harvested

2008-08-25T18:55:00.000-07:00

The last two years here in Mendocino County have been very dry. The Calypso did not flower heavily and the hand pollination was an all time low. These things combined to produce a very small harvest of seed. The lilium rubescen at my friends house set four capsules and I have them in silk wrappers to save the seed. One of my calypso transplants grew a pup this last spring so I can now crow about having successfully transplanted Calypso. There a a few secrets I will tell here soon. The in vitro project has nothing to report. No news on the in situ sowings.

The lily seedlings have gone underground. It is so hard to watch them go brown and wither and not let myself water them. I haven't watered them and I will do a jig when they, if they, come back. I planted four lily seed in each four inch pot. I did not get full germination so I will be looking at possibly emerging plants of a year in age difference. I am so glad to have found the information that first year lily seedlings have a single grasslike blade. It is true, one tiny fragile blade all the first year. So I am counting on being able to spot the older seedlings by a different more lily like leaf and then I can move them up into larger pots for growing on another year. I will be back when I can share my transplanting secrets.

Calypso bulbosa in vitro update

2007-10-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

I said I would tell all my mistakes and messes. I had said in an earlier post that BM-2 medium with 20% coconut water was the best and proven formula for Calypso in vitro. I then went searching for the actual info at the source and got my wires crossed. I corrected myself in error and changed the coconut water to 20ml per liter. That would be 2%. I actually did a batch of flasks with this and I will sow them in a few days. The 20% was actually what my source had recommended. But now, I have actually in my possession hard evidence that 10% coconut works. I have seedlings sent to me from a lab for growing on.

I have heard from a researcher in Europe that large percentages of coconut can have mutating effects resulting in problems for the development of the corms and that they are discouraged at using it. I am slowly closing in on what works. It may turn out that the 2% coconut water works fine but I am sure the 10% works. I am going to do a run of bm-2 with 10% coconut and 2gms charcoal per liter in a few days to cook up the waters and tools for the sowing of the 2% coconut medium.

Is this confusing? Join the club. I stay that way most of the time. This flasking is a lot to learn. This is the first time I have felt challenged enough by propagation to keep serious notes. That's how I am finding out what a vulnerable human I am. It is humbling. I can read back and check my calculations and drop my jaw in wonder at how I arrived at the wrong conclusion with such confidence. Going so far as to tell other people how to do something and having my wires crossed. Humbling.

Tomorrow I will dump the first two flaskings I did with BM-1. I did those in April. Almost 6 months ago. There is still no contamination but there is no growth, either. The bm-2 without coconut is now two and a half months old and shows no promise. Shows no contamination either, I suppose I should be thankful for that. All three of the first batches had a couple of tablespoons of liquid sloshing around in them before sowing. I cooked the last batch, #4 the full time for boiling and it is all firm. Much better. I am learning to follow directions. I also put half as much medium, 50ml in each half pint jar so I can see better in there.

So, this is the correction. If any of my seed customers over on the web site feel like I steered them wrong I hope they will read the part again about how I am new to this, very new. I do however feel a certain responsibility if my advice has led to failure. Who knows, maybe this is divine intervention and 2% is ideal. Please get it touch if you feel the need.

Chimaphila pipsissewa and Lilium rubescen

2007-10-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

A quick update on the lily project-I got 16 seeds of the western native lilium rubescens from my friend's wild lillies. They are all planted in the mix in four inch pots. My friend, let's call her Paula, because that is her name, has come up with another project for me. Chimaphila umbellata. This is a shade loving perennial that grows around here and is just way too cute not to try and grow. Turns out it is also fungus dependent and a strange little wintergreen beauty. I will post some links to pictures I like on other websites of pipsissewa and try to write more about what an interesting little plant THAT one is. I am very happy to discover that the seed capsules often persist through the winter so I will be out hiking trying to track some down.

The rains have come today. I checked the Calypso yesterday and the leaves are poking up and beginning to unfurl. We have only had about a quarter of an inch of rain until today but it or something has triggered the new calypso growth season. Nothing to report in my seeded boxes. I have noticed that the area under the redwoods where the calypso grow has been damp in the mornings from fog drip. Just damp under the overhanging branches in a large circle. Ground outside the dripline has been bone dry.

I again tossed the Calypso seed capsules and wraps and seed that was not selected for market onto the ground in a patch of dirt that has no Calypso growing for at least two feet. If this patch is filled with babies like the other I will do a massive sowing on the forest floor with no additional leaf mold or mulch. All of the other seed beds I amended somehow with additional leaf mold or mulch are non events so far. It may be that I just need to toss the seed...what a concept. It is hard to restrain myself from manipulating somehow and will be a very different approach to gardening for me. Humbling to say the least.

Lilium rubescens and Calypso bulbosa Orchid

2007-09-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

Welcome to all the folks who have found me here and to all my returning visitors! The website has translation abilities now and there are times my hit counter looks like the United Nations. I am going to try and post a map from Wiki on Calypso bulbosa global
occurrence. I think it is a great map and I need to post a link to the wiki page I got it from in order to be able to republish it. Here is the link...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calypso_orchid

and above is the map:posting successful.

Hello and I am back. I am not sure if I am at a fork in the road, a turn in the road, or a convergence of fate. I am adding a new item to the ONE item I already have at

http:/calypsoorchid.com

Years ago I became enchanted with the Calypso orchid, native to my area. I have tried over the last three years to coax seed to germinate using in situ and this year, in vitro germination. I am not giving up. In fact I have a whole new slant on how to grow Calypso from seed in soil mix. I have a friend nearby who has been after me to come and see her wild Redwood lillies. Well, I finally got over there last month and was able to wrap one seed pod. Note to self:Check that pod. I began the usual web searching trying to gather information on the L. rubescens. Wouldn't you just know it. She is another diva of the highest order with delayed hypogeal germination, a deep distaste for disturbance and a serious lack of seed or plants available. AND Lilium rubescens is listed as endangered just north of here in Oregon.

I took the bait hook line and sinker. I just can't resist a challenge I guess. Especially when it involves a local native with a world class fragrance and gorgeous blooms and in need of help. Not wanting to wait for the pod to ripen I ordered two grams of last year's seed from JLHudson seed company. When it arrived I estimated the seed count at about 400. A good start. I put the seed in the freezer, joined the yahoo lily group and got deep in over my head very quickly. But I have surfaced again!

Here is what I did. I made a peat and vermiculite based soilless mix with charcoal and a trace of bonemeal. I put this, 15 gallons of mix, in garbage bags with water to moisten to the just right squeeze test, no drips, just damp. I then put a light layer of granulated charcoal in the bottom of each four inch pot, topped it up with soilless mix, leveled it off and gave it a thump on the bench to settle the mix about a half inch down from the rim.

The seeds being a year old I decided I needed extra assistance to have a chance at any kind of even germination. I used a 1% bleach solution for 20 minutes on the seed. They sure leached brown into the water. I rinsed three times, all distilled water, and then gave a 24 hour soak in the dark except for agitating and peeking at the seeds. I also rinsed them three more times when the water got to looking like weak black tea. This step was to leach the dormancy regulators from the seed coat and get the seeds to start imbibing. It worked great. They were noticably plumper and the seed skin was ballooning from absorbed water. I drained them on a paper towel and kept them moist with a sprayer while I put them four each to the four inch pots. I sprinkled a little mix over the seeds and topped the pots with perlite to keep them clean and moist.

While I was doing all this I had a revelation. Why not try the same idea with Calypso and instead of soilless I used soil and leaf mold from near other Calypso, about a gallon. I added the peat and vermiculite and bonemeal, same as the lillies and spread this mix in 3 inch deep cell packs, 72 cells to a tray and topped them with perlite. Then I watered with rain water and put the trays in plastic bags. Each of the lily pots is in it's own ziplock but the Calypso are in trays of cells so I used plastic trash bags.

Turns out that both of these local beauties like a dark cool rest for initial germination and resent transplanting. I am dreaming of a flower bed in the shade of the redwoods where Calypso and Lilium rubescens bloom with rhododendrons. Can you imagine how beautiful and fragrant such a garden would be? The Calypso would bloom just before the rhododendrons and be followed by the lily. Calypso blooms here for weeks and the lily follows as the rhododendrons fade. Someone should do this combination of shade loving flowers, maybe add Dicentra...bleeding heart and ferns....

If this works I will be very happy. I am ordering another two grams of lily seed when this year's seed comes in and still waiting on the local pod to ripen. So, it turns out that by adding another native to my line up I may have been gifted with the technique required to germinate Calypso.

Two falls ago, when the Calypso seed was clean and dry and all in the refrigerator I did my usual little ritual of taking the old seed cases and the seed which fell from the pod and missed the funnel, and the rejected pods out to the woods and tossed them and their wrappings under a redwood tree with Calypso growing nearby but none in the spot I tossed the seed. I know this because I have been all over the spot crawling around pollinating caged Calypso for three years and it has always been bare there.This spot was crowded with baby Calypso leaves last fall, one year later. I don't know what happened there but this fall when I took the waste out I again tossed it near other Calypso in a spot I know has been bare for three years, just like the other. If this spot shows many new plants I will have new information to report on the Calypso bulbosa life cycle.

So I am wondering if I should start a new blog for Lilium rubescens or just try and cover both of them here? Any comments on preferences?

I am hoping to get a picture of my new plant laboratory. It is a 1964 Avion 24 foot travel trailer parked in the shade of the redwood trees. It stays nice and cool and dark and I think the Divas like it in there. So that is what I have been up to! Don't expect any products from the lily for about three years. Sales of Calypso seed manage to pay my internet and web site fees for now. This will be a labor of love for a few more years....more soon! Hope to hear from you soon.

After writing all of this I had to go back and delete all my exclamation points...blogger won't let us use exclamation points. It is like trying to talk without using my hands...(exclamation point)

All my best,
Calypsogrower

The Calypso Orchid seed break through

2007-08-08T16:43:00.000-07:00

Sure enough, it's time for an update. Today I decided to get back to flasking orchid seed. As a warm up I went through old emails and documents and new emails to get in the mood. I am looking at a flasking of orchid seed on 9 jars I prepared in April. The batch is of terrestrial orchid medium with my as yet unproven monkeying with the ph. I hope everyone remembers I am a newbie to flasking and intend to post my failures, bad ideas, and my successes. I stated in an earlier post that I made up bm-1 medium with 20 PER CENT coconut water. I wanted to go back and verify the recipe at it's source in my notes and all I was able to find was the advice to use 20ml coconut water per total of one liter medium. So the batch of ten I brew today will be BM-2 with the 20ml coconut water. This is the formula that has been germinating like gang busters for other people and I need to try it out flasking at home. I can only marvel at how and why I methodically tried the other three recipes for posterity before doing the one that has been proven to work. So now I am behind nearly four months on the sowing of orchid seed in the medium that has the best chance of success ever with Calypso orchid seed. I will report on the older flasked orchid seed as soon as there is a change to report. Who the heck knows what will happen in those jars?

So the first hurdle to producing Calypso bulbosa orchids for sale has been breached. We know how to germinate the seed with some certainty. We have found one way that works. The next hurdle is the replate. I haven't heard anything on this except making sure they have a cool dark resting period of a few weeks after replate or transplant. After the replate comes transplanting and if all goes well this little group of Calypso researchers, and you know who you are, will make history in orchid species preservation.

Let us not forget that I am also watching my in situ orchid seed beds and that a more nursery style operation is more to my liking.

This year's harvest of Calypso orchid seed was once again just a great time. I will be posting more pictures soon and I invite everyone to go to the official Calypso Orchid web site and see the new pictures of the in vitro equipment and the two double Calypso flowers on one stem.

Homemade Vacuum for Floating Seeds!

2007-04-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

My homemade glovebox with everything I might possibly need and as it turned out way too much stuff! The second run of flasking today had more free space in the box. The big surprise for me was how much Calypso orchid seed floats! I had read about putting together some equipment to draw a vacuum on floating seed but I sure didn't have anything even close to what Aaron Hicks describes in his orchid flasking manual. After more than two days in the sugar and wetting agent solution most of the seed was still floating and I was getting very concerned about being able to draw off the solutions in the glovebox. I knew I would have on clumsy gloves and cramped conditions. What I didn't know was that all my pipettes had melted in the second ill fated batch of flasks I cooked. I found this out when I opened the foil packets in the glovebox!

Anyway, back to the floating seed. I created a vacuum by sucking on the glass test tubes holding the seed in the sugar water. I popped off the rubber stopper and put the open end in my mouth and held a strong suction for about 15 seconds. I then recapped the tube, gave it a shake and sucked on the next one. I needed to do each tube about five times to get all or most of the seed to sink. I left one tube alone as a control just to see and sure enough that one was tougher to decant. I used a huge long hypodermic needle for drawing up the solutions and kept a bowl of straight bleach to draw up in the needle and slosh around the outside for sterilizing.

So today I have 10 flasks in an ice chest going outside into a cool shed for now. There is something very fun about doing this and I am hoping for some small success to encourage me to continue. I have bleach stains on a few things, a wiped out tablecloth and a rash on my arm from the bleach....and there was that blister on my upper lip from sucking on the tubes! I applied ice to my sore lip and perfected my technique on the second flasking run. The tubes then went into the glove box and the rest of the work was a kind of meditation on being methodical.

Now we wait. The bad news will come fast. Contaminated flasks are bound to happen the first time. The good news will take much longer, about four months for the first germination. I will get back here and post any new developments. Meantime I have 9 more flasks that I am watching for a week to see if they are clean and then I will sow them. This is the batch of flasks that had the busted flask and the medium affected the pressure cooking temperature.

Calypso bulbosa orchid seed soaking in sugar water...

2007-04-21T10:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of hundreds of seed in a sugar bath. I did ten of these tubes and expect to move them into the glove box for disinfection and sowing.

How sweet it is! How sweet is it?

One eighth cup of sugar dissolved in 100 ml of distilled water.
3cc sugar water to each tube.
Tubes, stoppers and syrup cooked in the pressure cooker and cooled.
Dropped the seed in the tube, recapped and agitated.
After 8 hours all seeds floating.
Uncapped and added two drops of wetting agent.
Agitate and shake up every hour or so.
At 16 hours about 10% of the seed is less bouyant.

That is what is going on right now with the in vitro Calypso seed germination project. The second batch of 9 flasks [one broke], of straight BM-2 terrestrial orchid medium is sitting on the counter under a towel waiting to see if there is any contamination. The first batch appears clean after a week now so I have started the seed soaking in the sugar.

Why a sugar soak? Here are my reasons.

Any contamination of the seed by spores or bacteria are very likely to break dormancy in the highly seductive sweetness of the sugar. This makes them more vulnerable to being killed by the disinfecting process.

Calypso orchid seed is a floater. My current crop of seed has 90 % embryos and is germinating for many people already. It just floats!

I plan on the absolute minimum effective exposure time to the 1% bleach disinfection solution, 4-6 minutes. This is also the minimum effective percent of bleach. This seed is naturally a lovely ivory color just like the main roots. Calypso is bleach sensitive so anything I can do to soften up the bad guys before I deliver the quick jab is what I am doing. Also, anything that helps the seed to sink is going to make it very much less complicated to draw off the solutions and three sterile distilled water rinses.

I am not working in the glove box yet but I did pile everything in it to see how it looked. I have a space problem. Looks like I can only work on 5 flasks at a time in the glove box until I can narrow down my tools. For the first flasking, since I am clueless and brand new to flasking I am sure to be over equipped. I have devised a few ways to wash and rinse the seeds in there in case plan A fails.

Adjusting the ph on the latest batch of flasks went much more smoothly although one of the jars broke in the pressure cooker. I think the addition of the medium to the steam in the cooker messed things up a little. For the last five minutes of the cooking the gage was at full steam and no rattle even with the fire on as high as it would go. So I let it go for an extra three minutes and things started smelling a tad burnt. I think there was a problem but all I can do is hold the remaining flasks for a week and see what happens. I am going to surface sterilize them a few times since they are all coated with a fine film of dilute medium...a great nutrient for mold!

I told you I would tell all! I am beginning to wonder if it is too late to drop the whole project? I know what is going to happen when I have 1500 Calypso bulbosa orchid protocorms...I am going to replate them, of course!

Orchid Flasks and Adjusting PH in Medium!

2007-04-14T18:10:00.000-07:00

Doesn't sound exciting at all but I gotta tell you it was way more of a challenge than I had anticipated. I had all the equipment washed up, laid out and ready to go. I ran through a few steps with plain water. My confidence was as high as it could be so I began. Well, I just turned off the pressure cooker and I, too, am loosing steam. Whew!

It all went well up to the ph check. It was a real pleasure working with the lab stuff I had bought because it was all so finely calibrated. Anyway, just for the heck of it I decided to hold a ph strip in the liquid medium and it read 4.5! I was going to go with it as it was until then. Calypso is growing here in a soil with a ph of 6. I had hoped the ph would be about 5.5 as described in the product information as 5.5 to 4.5 but 4.5 was way too acid. I may have really screwed up both 500 ml batches as I found out the hard way just what Aaron Hicks means in his book when he writes that tiny amounts of baking soda or vinegar can have a big effect. Add to that my own sense of confusion and the pressure of the medium needing to be stirred constantly....it was a mess. The second batch went smoother but I am glad the ten jars are cooling in the cooker and what is done is done.

I had enough BM-1 for one liter. I got out my digital scale that measures .01 gram accuracy. I had read that the medium is very liable to absorb moisture so I wanted to use it up before it got damp. I measured out the medium for the first batch and recapped the bottle. These two batches of five jars each are both BM-1 Terrestrial Orchid Medium. The first five are 100 ml each of the straight BM-1 medium plus my whacky adjustments with baking soda and vinegar. The second five have 20% coconut water and my, ahem, adjustments.

I actually did get the ph in the neighborhood of 6 for both batches of medium once I started using a pipette to count drops of vinegar and baking soda and water from a shot glass.

Before going into the cooker I wrapped each jar in foil and put a black "C" on the tops of the flasks with coconut water. That was another wild moment as I had forgotten to have a felt tip pen on hand and had to go flailing around looking for one.

I am so glad that this orchid flasking stuff can be broken into groups of tasks. I thought I was so ready for this and it did get tense! Now I need to do it all over again with the BM-2 Medium. I am going to leave each batch of flasks to sit for at least five days to see if any contamination develops.

If the flasks are clean after the five days I will begin soaking the seed in sugar water to wake up any critters and get them in shape for the bleach disinfection of 1% bleach for 6 minutes, maybe 4. I'll be back in a few days with more reporting. Time for a break!

Calypso seed germination and much more...

2007-04-13T22:01:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to pop in and give a general update on how the hand pollination is going this year. We have been having about half the normal rainfall this season and the entire wave of bloom has started earlier and may peak sooner. Hand pollination of 68 flowers was done over a two day period. These have all been caged and flagged. That was about a week ago so it should be obvious by now if the pollination "took" as evidenced by the flower wilting within four days and the swelling beginning right behind the old flower. I have this link posted on The Calypso Orchid Company website at calypsoorchid.com and I hope it helps with the more technical details of calypso bulbosa seed germination in vitro. It covers seed disinfecting, germination times and temperatures, good photos and drawings of seed germination and developing protocorms at 60 weeks. I have gotten some ideas from this article that I am using as guidelines for my own adventure with Calypso in vitro.

Here is the link:

http://www.jspcmb.jp/pbcontents/pdf/pb15_2/pb15_2_083.pdf

Photo of Snail damage to a Calypso flower

2007-03-24T11:50:00.000-07:00

I didn't see the snail, it might have been a slug that sampled this flower. My chicken wire won't stop the monopeds! I use a product called Sluggo around the orchids. It is safe for everything except the snails. My camera is still puzzling me. Part of the problem is it and the menus are so tiny! I am trying the hit and miss approach to mastering the technology. I should put down the camera and start pollinating calypso flowers...

The three Calypso subjects push a flower...

2007-03-17T17:42:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of the three leaves I have been following all winter. I made the chicken wire so I could easily lift it out of the photographs I have been posting here. There is an earlier picture of the curled up leaves emerging. In general I think the flowers are smaller this year because of the drought in January. I did give all the plants in the nursery a drink or two from the rain tank during that time so maybe I will get a super star or two from there to take pictures of. The pictures of flowers I took today with the new camera seemed overexposed. I will try and figure out how to do it right. Below is a closeup of the bud in this picture.

Picture of emerging Calypso flower...

2007-03-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

All of the pictures in this blog can be enlarged to show more detail by right clicking on them. The developing parts of the flower can be seen in amazing detail.

Calypso flower buds are rising...

2007-03-12T21:41:00.000-07:00

Well, Hello! I can see I need to knock down a few cobwebs around here. It has been a while since my last post. The big news is that last week the first and possibly only flower began to show color and today it is open. This flower is in the same colony as the earliest flower last season. The entire bloom is almost one month later than last year. I am speculating that the five weeks of dry weather from the first of January had something to do with this. It is said that Calypso just waits until conditions suit her even spending two years underground resting. All of the other flower spikes I saw were only one to two inches high. I promise photos soon as I try and catch the process close up with my new camera.

The transplants I have from here that are in their second year in various redwood boxes are doing pretty well and some are blooming and making more bulbs. I am very happy about that because it will mean that Calypso can be transplanted and thrive. None of the bulbs I bought up north from the fly by night dealer have shown any sign of coming up. The seed beds are very quiet with no visible activity.

The visible activity around here calypso-wise is the new project of asymbiotic seed germination. I have been emailing with some very scientific people and learning much this past winter. I am in the final stages of a glove box construction, got my medium, media, jars, a pressure cooker, and all I need is the nerve to start mixing and heating the stuff and get it in the jars. I am confused at the moment because I have done tons of canning in pressure cookers and I never had to vent the jars! I want to poke a hole in the lid and glue a septa to it and let it seal on up in the pressure cooker. I will then, in theory, sow the seed through the septa with a 3 inch long #20 needle and syringe. The septa would be food grade gasket material crazy glued over the hole in the lid made by an icepick. One page says that the septa should have a needle in it for autoclaving so the pressure will be released and the contents won't boil over. Why should the contents, less than half the volume of the jar, boil over? Letting the jars heat and seal is standard canning procedure and I really like the idea of doing it this way. Anyone out there care to help me out? I don't want to have to have two dozen hypodermic needles to deal with! I am going ahead full speed with this phase of the project. Recent research with other temperate terrestrials has shown that they can be transplanted from flask to intermediate under glass humidity for a phase and then to native soil. This is right in line with the woman in Washington State that has her Calypso seed flasked and then she grows them on in old fish tanks...quite a concept! Anyway, I am trying it all. Soon I will try my hand at sterilizing and flasking dry seed and then, tah-dah! I will try green capsule!

Over on the website I placed a link to Cafepress. I have a store over there with Calypso photos on t-shirts, cups, and a tote bag. I have two of the tote bags and they are really getting comments like, "beautiful!" I like to have a picture with me to share...the totes are big and strong with great shoulder straps. I will soon be changing the art over there so check it out!

The soil temps are going down fast...

2006-11-17T18:08:00.000-08:00

All of the locations sampled today were 51-54 degrees and wet. I have been closely following the emergence of the three leaves in the big grow box. Here is the update photo on the three leaves in the box.This is an undisturbed wild plant I am protecting. I drizzled thousands of seed into this box today and right over the top of these leaves. It won't be long now and the flowers will emerge from the base of these leaves and park for awhile. I am amazed at the sheer numbers of plants this year! I am probably going to cage about two hundred and then some. There are plants coming up this year that were invisible last year because they were eaten or something but have come back. Usually these are loner's, one single little leaf poking up. All of last years caged leaves are showing more tips coming up very closely. The transplants I am working with are emerging, all of them. The plant material I purchased from the vendor on the terrestrial orchid forum are still missing in action. That whole scene left a very bad feeling. If they do come up I will amend my words. I am waiting for my transplants to show signs of multiplying....waiting. They aren't dead but they aren't ecstatic either. Growth and reproduction would tell me I was having some success with being able to transplant a viable plant...waiting. I keep thinking that chilling the seeds should speed up the cycle and I might maybe could see something in my older seed bed soon....waiting. After all 75 weeks may be the time it takes in nature, I don't know where that number came from. If it is the time it takes for nature to show the first leaf this means the seed sat for four or five months in dry duff waiting for the rains and the fungus and then needed to cool. I am just hoping and...waiting.

Calypso bulbosa orchid seedbed 2006

2006-11-17T17:50:00.000-08:00

That tough decision I was facing earlier? I made it for better or for worse. This photograph is the 2006 seedbed. The tough decision was how much seed to plant back in the nursery for "research" and how much to hang onto for distribution. I planted quite a bit of seed in this bottomless box bed and filled it up. What I did this time since I had so much seed, around a half teaspoon, I rinsed it into a wide mouth gallon jug and added about half a gallon of rainwater. I used a half cup stainless steel ladle and drizzled the seed water mixture into five approximate rows. I want the rows to be kind of rowlike so that if they come up I will know that the pattern means I planted them and they didn't just blow in. Here's my work area in the nursery. The cage at the end of the box is the three Calypso we are following this year.

Protecting native orchids from predators...

2006-11-16T17:24:00.000-08:00

Today was a real Calypso kind of day. Foggy, drizzling and in the low 50's here with full cloud cover and tree drip all day, nice. I have a healing eye injury that makes me have to wear sunglasses all the time and glare is a problem. Days like this I am fine without shades and the moisture feels good. I am afraid that the work on the Calypso out in the woods is starting and I am just not going to be quite as prolific a poster as I am in the bright months when the days are long and the solar panels put out far more than the batteries or I need, Now it gets dark at 5 pm and I need to be more conservative with the energy for everything. That is why I write at my keyboard by kerosene lanterns!

Today, as I was saying, out in the woods was swell! I went with the intention of putting my chicken wire cages around 10 Calypso and flag them. This years flags are white. I need a different color for each of three years so I spread out the orchid fruit harvesting and don't over work any of the plants. This year it is white flags and I am putting cages on as many as I can find. Last year I had nine plants eaten in the night after they were hand pollinated. I have learned now in my third year of this that the plants thrive with this protection and are naturally pollinated and productive with no interference from me. I have several colonys that are caged and on their own for the third year now and they are making and dispersing seed every year. Anyhow, I ended up caging 21 in very short time and in a very close area. These little orchids in the nursery won't be eaten by deer or birds and they will not be walked on ever again as long as the little cages stay sturdy and the ground staples hold.

I was worried last year that there might not be enough Calypso orchids to sustain a three year harvest rotation plus leaving some for the wild. I am going to have plenty! I am amazed how many of the tiny leaves I am able to identify and protect in a small area!

I am having to make a tough decision...more on this soon.

Calypso twins closeup and personal!

2006-11-15T19:31:00.000-08:00

I love this one from last year...

2006-11-11T22:26:00.000-08:00

What the heck...????!!!!

Calypso after the logging...

2006-11-11T22:21:00.000-08:00

In a conversation on orchidgeeks.com the subject of logging and Calypso came up. I am posting this picture so the forum can access it. This not opened bud and buddy are looking out over the devastion from what was left of the path of the sheepsfoot roller behind the D8 Cat on tracks. It all rolled right over them! This is a picture of my neighbors property.

This year's seed box for Calypso, yummy!

2006-10-23T00:08:00.000-07:00

It is a little damp and cold and moldy for me but I think this is paradise for the Calypso orchid. I've got my good luck charms rattling. Things have been rotting nicely under the boards. I am going to let the air and light calm down all this fungus activity on the surface and wait for the next bout of inspiration and a few more leaves to fall and cover the bed.

Calypso orchid emerges from the redwood leaves on the forest floor

2006-10-22T23:41:00.000-07:00

Just to keep things in perspective we have inserted our finger for reference. These leaves will all get bigger in time and the flower will begin to push about January is our guess. These are the same leaves as the picture below. You will see more of this trio as we follow them through bloom, pollination, and seed set this season. (If they make it!)I am supposing they are vegetative clones of the same plant and they will be out crossed for pollination. Last year the flowers showed a definite age and time when they would accept pollen more readily and this will be used this year.

Newly emerging Calypso leaves, two still curled...

2006-10-22T17:37:00.000-07:00

Calypso bulbosa lifecycle begins at latitude 39...

2006-10-19T17:05:00.000-07:00

I will need to correct that latitude when I get the exacts...however, what I mean to say is the new cycle of leaves are emerging. The pictures are on the camera and will be here soon but I couldn't wait! Thursday, October 19, 2006. I checked these spots Monday and didn't see anything. They come up all curled into a spear shape and then unfurl the leaf and flatten it out. Today I found a good spot to set the camera and I am hoping to make a time lapse of the flower rising and developing. There are three leaves emerging at the spot I have chosen so I am hopefully going to have a bloom to follow.We have scarcely had any rain, a quarter inch of mist and then a tenth. The moisture never hit the ground under the big trees it stayed dry. I'll just bet it is the fungus supplying the moisture and the incentive to grow, moisture very possible.The soil has been cooling and I will post the temps soon. I am still waiting the results of my boxes without direct stable earth contact. Is it possible to grow Calypso from seed in movable boxes? I am convinced it is very possible to grow from seed in nature and I will sow that seed within days. My friend and a fan of Calypso from Washington reports leaf emergence on her 108 rescued Calypso she has adopted. So the year is beginning for Calypso orchids. I want to thank all my customers again. It is pretty amazing that this is working at all but thanks to the people who are willing to give it a try and be on the cutting edge of Calypso growing. I want to set up a forum so we can all share soil mixes, all that stuff. I really want one or more! of those old ant farms. I want to bury it out in the forest and plant Calypso in it! Do they still make those things? Maybe just plexiglas screwed together and spaced about a 16th inch apart. I promise, new leaf photos soon!

Redwood leaves and search engines...

2006-10-09T15:46:00.000-07:00

I am curious about something. Almost daily someone lands on this blog after doing a web search on redwood leaves. I would very much like to know what people are searching on redwood leaves for. In all cases so far it has been a search initiated where there are no redwoods. Are they looking for this for growing orchids? Please leave a comment and let me know about this it is making me very curious! Maybe I should be selling redwood leaves by the pound...around here they are sometimes called redwood feathers instead of leaves. I guess it is because they look like feathers a bit. Work continues on the other website and I gotta say it is coming together pretty good. I am like a monkey with a typewriter when it comes to html code and I need to call for help occasionally but all in all I am tickled. I just wish more people who find the blog would find the link to the web site. Folks on the web site wander around the blog all the time but traffic is not so heavy from the blog to the web. I know it takes a little bit of a sense of adventure to find and follow the Calypso Orchid Company link on this blog but it is well worth the trip! Check it out!

Calypso bulbosa and soil temperature...

2006-09-26T11:22:00.000-07:00

Ambient air temperatures have been in the low 90F's. The nights are in the 70's. The last soil temperature readings I took where Calypso is growing were 62 degrees or lower down to 57F.

I want to do a paper mache' and silk headpiece and mask of Calypso bulbosa for Halloween. If I do there will be pictures! I usually wear a costume that is the title of a song. For example, one Halloween I was a Devil with the blue dress on. It was a good use of a bride's maid dress. One year I put together a horse costume and wore a name badge that was blank. So going out for Halloween as a giant Calypso flower would be a change. I love going out to community Halloween gatherings in full disguise. Try it sometime...

+++++++Big news on the seed producing front+++++++

One of my ebay customers held onto their feedback on me until they heard back from their flasking lab where they took the seeds for germinating. The lab told them the seeds have 90 per cent embryos and I am very happy to say the least. Now if I just could claim that my seeds had come up! This winter my first efforts at direct seed sowing of Calypso are due to show some sign of growth. More soon...email me or post a comment!

Joined Calypso bulbs in April

2006-09-14T23:38:00.000-07:00

This photograph of connected Calypso bulbosa bulbs shows two strongly joined bulbs. Taken last spring I am just now posting it here. The date of the posting is misleading the pictures were taken in April.

Calypso bulbosa

2006-09-14T23:16:00.000-07:00

The middle of September is just a few days away followed by the Autumnal equinox. The nights here in Northern California are beginning to cool down and the wind is carrying the first leaves of fall to the earth. There will still be hot days and warm nights but the change of season is in the air and I am getting pretty excited about the return of the Calypso orchids! Each year I am able to learn more specific and detailed facts about this hardy terrestrial orchid by observing in nature and taking notes. I think this year will be very good because I am learning to be more observant. I am especially interested in leaf emergence times here and of course I am still waiting for my seeds to germinate and grow. Patience is required in large doses because of the information found elsewhere that Calypso bulbosa needs about 75 weeks to show the first tiny leaf....yikes. I am also very interested in the interconnected bulbs. Calypso has many surprises for those who think they understand plants. I am going to try and attach a picture of the bulb connection. It is strange and a little hard to see but there is a real tissue connection between bulbs from one year to the next year's bulb.

August Heat and Invisible Calypso

2006-08-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

Here we are celebrating the first harvest time of the year and Calyspo has completely disappeared. In some places I can still see the withered flower stem if I know where to look. Believe me, I am looking. This year will be different, they all have been different at this point. The first year I caged and harvested three naturally occurring capsules. The second year I caged and pollinated flowers. This year I will be caging emerging Calypso leaves. The cages stay in place year round and each has a colored flag. I haven't decided what color I will use this year but the flags, too, will remain year round. Last year's flags are pink. The plan is to harvest a capsule once every three years from a plant. It appears that given protection the orchids will set seed far more frequently than when something can get at them and eat them. I am very excited about being able to catalog and document on a long term basis each of over 300 plants. I hope in the future each cage, some containing over a dozen plants will have a number and annual photographs.

The cages are small mesh chicken wire. Each piece is about 18 inches high and 20 inches long. I use 6 inch ground staples to pin the chicken wire to the earth. Because I don't want to be pulling and reinserting the staples everytime I pollinate or inspect the contents of the cage, I have made the cage in two pieces and the base stays in place.

Yesterday I went into the woods to see if there was any sign of Calypso life above ground and there wasn't. I didn't expect any but last year when I checked in September they were coming up. So I needed to get an early start on this for a few years to see how it varies. That is about it for today. If you know of any shrinking colonies of Calypso get out there and cage them! I think we humans have had a big impact on natural systems, far too big to go into here. Besides it is very difficult to describe without going into all the details of interconnectedness. Just take my word for it, we have seriously changed the predator balance and Calypso needs help!

How to sow orchid seed in nature....

2006-07-16T16:14:00.000-07:00

I imagine these instructions would apply to epiphytic orchids as well. I have no advice for lab sowing except please don't put these cool and darkness loving seeds under a hot halogen microscope lightif you can help it. These are the instructions sent with each seed order to be useful for returning Calypso to the wild.

Read this section through to the end at least once before breaking the seal on the vial. Please complete all steps once the seed is wet. Try to sow within one hour of submerging seeds in water or the seed may begin to swell.

Sowing the Seed

First read this section through to the end and email me with any questions before removing the seal from the vial. Remove the seed vial from the refrigerator and allow it to come to room temperature before you open it to prevent moisture from condensing inside the cold vial. This will prevent moisture condensation from occurring INSIDE the vial in case you decide to wait before sowing. Keep the vial out of direct sunlight. When you are ready to remove the seal, cut it off and remove the sticky tape from your work area. Assemble the tools and set up a brightly lit area free from any air movement. A copy of these instructions are sent with every order. Assemble all the tools first and have everything ready. Make sure that you will have plenty of time to complete all the steps before beginning. Having a helper around can be a plus. You will need both hands to hold the seed water and work the spray pump. Having someone to open the door or gate or pour more water or take pictures can be a help unless you have chosen a spray bottle that will hold the pump without falling over and even then you need a flat place to set it down, not always at hand in the woods.

First, put down a sheet of aluminum foil for a work surface. The foil will help you recover any wayward seed. Illuminate the area with bright light. Make sure there is no wind or draft in the work area. Control breathing on seeds or they will take to the air! Wear magnifying glasses if you have them and have a hand held magnifier handy for closer inspections and to really appreciate the tiny seeds. Have ready: 1 gallon rain or distilled water, a clean glass jar at least four inches deep, a clean glass eye dropper, the pump and tube assembly from a new spray bottle. Set the probably plastic pump nozzle to the largest spray jet or stream, not spray mist. Practice with the sprayer and pump some distilled water to be sure ahead of time that you have range and the knack of it. You are going to be applying the seed in the woods using the sprayer set on jet. Put far aside the plastic bottle part of the spray bottle, you won't use it here.

If you have a smaller amount of seed or a lot of spare time you can forget the nozzle and pump and use a clean, new glass eye dropper to put the seed exactly where you want it.

Gently tap the vial on a hard surface to collect as many seeds as possible in the bottom of the vial. CAREFULLY open the vial, inspect the lid for clinging seed, remove any stray seed from the lid with a damp toothpick or drops of water and put them into the clean glass spray jar. Gently drop distilled water into the glass vial. Add enough rain or distilled water to the tiny bottle to swirl and agitate the seeds into the water, about 2/3 full. Close the cap with the lid not your finger. Now is a good time to take a close look at the seeds! Gently swish and agitate to wet the seeds and wash them into the water. Remove the tiny lid and pour this seedy water into the larger glass jar for spraying. Repeat this step until all the seed is in the glass jar for the spraying. Gently add more water to the jar for spraying but not overfull. The more water to seeds there are, the greater area you will apply the seeds to. A small amount of water or spraying in one place makes a concentrated dense seed application. Using the pump assembly removed from the new spray bottle with the pattern set to "stream" or "jet" not a mist {check this beforehand by trying a few pumps of rainwater through the jet setting), place the intake tube of the spray jet assembly in the glass jar that now contains the seeds in the water. Applying the seed spray will take both hands, with one hand, hold and gently agitate the jar, add more water as needed. With your other hand pump the stream pointing the nozzle toward the area to be seeded. Moving in sweeping arcs gives a natural coverage of large areas. Try to cover the area to be seeded evenly with the seed water solution. Subsequent and necessary refills of water to rinse and apply the seeds that remain stuck in the jar will be a much more diluted application of seed. Add more water to the jar, agitate and swish as before and spray again until all the seeds have been sown. Rinse all tools over the seed bed with the rain or distilled water. With this technique you never touch the seeds.

It's a good idea to sow the seed close to the time that they would naturally begin the growth cycle in your area. Here in the Pacific northwest that would be fall with the first rains and the leaf litter renewing. Other places just before the first snowfall may be the time. The seeds will be additionally cooled through the first winter and germinate at the time when the fungus is most present and active, slowly developing tiny underground pearls that may in a year and a half, send up the tiny first leaf about half the size of your smallest fingernail. From here on out we can only estimate since reliable data is not available on this species. We will however, using the best available information at this time, suggest 3-5 years from sowing and germination to flowering.

The Orchid Seedbank Project

2006-07-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

I want to mention a site that I have found helpful and inspiring.

The Orchid Seedbank Project at

http://members.cox.net/ahicks51/osp/

The site is administered by Aaron Hicks. He is one of, if not the only other person besides The Calypso Orchid Company, selling Calypso seed on the web or probably anywhere else. We have been emailing back and forth for months now and Aaron is unfailingly forthright and practical, helpful and welcoming. In another less perfect world he and I would be competitors. Boy, am I glad we don't have to deal with each other on that level. The focus is the orchid. The immediate need is to take the poaching pressure off of the wild species. The best way to do that is to make ethical and legal source verified seed available in huge quantities and get the orchid restored where possible and introduced where appropriate. Research, the sharing of information, the availability of seed, are all essential beginnings for maintaining a specie in trouble in even a small area. The work of restoration is easier if we catch the decline in it's early stages. Calypso is in just such a state in her southern most Pacific homeland of Santa Cruz. The orchid is getting scarce and rare. After just one generation most people forget the plant forever. One day seed grown plants may be ethically and sustainably available to the public but at this time they are not commercially available and able to stand transplanting. Seed is the way nature has it going on and you are invited to participate!

A little over a year ago my idea was to try and grow and propagate live plants and sell them to folks. True to her nature, the nymph Kalypso has shipwrecked those plans and tried to set my journey in another direction by offering gifts. In this case, unlike Odysseus, I am accepting the offer. The agenda? Make source verified seed and get it on the wind or in the postal service and dispersed, as much seed as possible. The gift? I may be able to eke out a small living and work at home.

Aaron has helped me with advice and instruction and I am grateful. He has worked for years to make whatever quantity of seed from Calypso came his way available to research and education. There has never been enough for everyone and certainly not sufficient quantity for landscape level naturalizing! Aaron had to pick and choose who got the seed. In comes the Calypso Orchid Company! Maybe now we will see some real progress in propagation of Calypso.

On the back burner, I am still working to produce viable live seed grown plants in quantity but my focus now is to make seed available. Having to wait 75 weeks for the first leaf leaves time for other pursuits. I need a PHD in botany just to describe the complexity and peril of transplanting this terrestrial orchid. It would be a huge waste of my energy to do this at this time compared to the chances of seeds finding the perfect spot. Buying uncertified plants could be acting in support of poaching and most people don't want to support the sheer greedy evil of digging a defenseless happy plant from the wild for money or glory. Seed grown certified source verified plants are not available commercially at this time anywhere. All of the links found on the web for laboratory cloned xplants or flasks are sold out or not working. Many people are trying both in the laboratory and in the wild to figure this orchid out commercially, trying to unlock the secrets of Calypso. The pressure on wild Calypso orchid plants is growing.

The Orchid Seedbank site has been cobbled together over the years, and now spans over 300 pages of information on growing orchids from seed- much of which consists of media formulations that Aaron has posted to the web. He has been doing this since 1997, and what he lacks in organization is made up for in depth. It's a good resource for anyone who wants to try flasking- or, better yet, find out what a pain it is before trying it themselves!

Calypsogrower works in nature, Aaron of the Orchid Seed Project is working in the lab and is at the hub of a growing circle of research and information for many, many species. His website is huge and complex and full of information and wit. Enjoy!

THE ORCHID SEED PROJECT

Please visit the Calypso Orchid Company

This link is to a page that Calypsogrower likes!

2006-07-16T12:42:00.000-07:00

In my hours of websurfing and research I come across diverse information. At times I contact the website if something is especially egregious and they are within easy reach. The link I am posting here is to a page on the web with an excellent photograph and a rambling discussion of the Calypso orchid and life, love, religion, politics, all the things we are told to avoid! I live deep in the woods and rarely wander because I think and try to talk like it matters. Here is a kindred spirit.

The only thing I question on the page is the name "Ames" in the caption under the photo. But the page author makes no claim to expert identification and everything else is pure gold. For this reason I am pasting the link here. I went ahead and contacted the author because I need to tell people when they are right as well as just the wrong ones. I got a fine response and Calypsogrower has a new friend!

Please bear in mind that my endorsement of the information on this blog or any other linked webpages is not that any of it is hard science, although some of it is. What it does mean is that we agree with the information based on our best reading of the tea leaves at that moment in time.

I hope you enjoy the read!

www.billstimson.com

The Web Page Works!

2006-07-11T23:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was darn productive. Everything around this venture has come together easily and very quickly. The new web page is up and running and ready to sell Calypso orchid seed. The labels and envelopes are due in the mail tomorrow and all the packaging details have been worked out. I have a listing on ebay that has met it's reserve. We are ready to rock and roll! I guess my predictions for a September opening were just a little too cautious because we are open now! I am storing the seeds in the refrigerator until I ship them and then the new owner can refrigerate them until sowing time this fall. This really works for me! I am sure that I have focused on every little detail to get these seeds to people in excellent condition and now finally we can get down to business. I mean, it has been fun talking about it, but now it is time, as they say, to get real. Please visit the new website for buying Calypso seed, getting more information about Calypso orchids, pictures of this beautiful flower and tips for growing at The Calypso Orchid Company.

2006-06-30T10:53:00.000-07:00

This tin can is about 1 1/2 inches across and less than 3/4 inch high. My daughter in law in Missourri is a graphic artist with a sign shop. She made it all so easy to pull this little package together! Inside the little can are more surprises. Next week I should receive the actual glass seed containers. I will then post a picture of the entire unit.You will be amazed, it is so cute! No one will ever get crushed or damp seeds with this 100% reusable package. Not just recyclable, but -reusable and very handy for tiny things to be safe, dry, dark and cool inside. I am finding the tiny cans very useful for exacto knife blades. I am sure they have a thousand uses.

Calypso Orchid News

2006-05-24T16:18:00.000-07:00

I am happy to announce the construction of a new website at www.calypsoorchid.com. The "old godaddy" page will be the new ixwebhosting page in 48 hours. The new page is just a place marker for now but I sure do have alot of notes I will be posting there soon. Please come to the new site and browse through the developing Calypso information. Also wish us well as we launch a new venture for the world's first ever sustainably harvested commercially available Calypso seed for naturalizing. The Grand Opening of the new site will be September 15, 2006. The new web site is added to on a weekly basis. It is a great place to get prepared for sowing orchid seed this fall. We will have vernalized seed for sale beginning September 15, 2006 in never before dreamt of Calypso quality AND quantity. We will have alot going on in the meantime so check it out!

This is a late editing, 7/11/2006 on the above post. This is to update the information in this blog post. All of the caution about waiting until September is history. Everything I said here is true except the delay part. We are open and selling now. This seed will ship and store just fine as soon as it is dry enough to pack and that was ten days after harvest. We are up and running!

Calypso orchid seed capsule

2006-05-20T20:10:00.000-07:00

I have alot of these ripening well. This whole stem and capsule was about 7 inches high from the ground. Some I am harvesting are almost ten inches. The actual capsules are very small, not many over two inches long. Looks like the hand pollination was a success. I will have seed available when the webpage is up. This blog is not a commercial place. So send me an email and I will send the web address as soon as it is up and running. Things are pretty busy around here trying to get the perfectly ripening capsules contained to catch the seed. They will then be packed in tubes whole with the little pajamas on and left to air dry a few days in a dry dark place. I have found that a few days drying indoors after harvest makes cleaning and processing the seed much easier.

I am also trying to find an agency that will certify my business as ethical and sustainable. Not organic, ok, this is different. I want some way to assure people that this is an up and up operation enhancing the natural wild population and helping to repatriate the Calypso orchid by naturalizing. I may end up getting an organic registration, I qualify no problem. I am acting on the advice of my County USDA person who has encouraged me to seek other certification. Any clues out there? So far my native plant society has said they don't have any say over commercial ventures. Too bad, I was hoping they would be more proactive. We sure hear alot about how to maintain and use natives, we hear about how they are abused, why not say when someone has them available honestly and not pirated? I am continuing my quest for recognition of sustainable practices....

I have heard a new term that I like. Source verified means a person knows where the seed came from. I can swear to this but who do I swear to?

Calypsogrower

2006-05-12T21:33:00.000-07:00

The 180 degree rotation of the emerging flower bud. The older bud has rotated. The smaller, younger bud has not rotated.

2006-05-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

Redwood Giant and Calypso Flowers

Parking this here for uploading to new webpage

2006-05-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

Calypso Twins

2006-04-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

Another great picture by Sarah Hepting on the Olympus E500. Clickable and incredible blown up, go ahead!

The Anther Cap and Column of Calypso

2006-04-27T13:33:00.000-07:00

The little golden button is the place to begin pollination. It is in the top of the column.

A likely suspect for Calypso symbiosis

2006-04-24T22:42:00.000-07:00

A beautiful clickable picture of a fungus near Calypso that her roots seem to love.

Redwood leaves and mycorrhiza

2006-04-23T20:54:00.000-07:00

The picture above this post was taken by my friend Sarah Hepting on her Olympus E500 digital camera. I hope to learn more about the specific fungi of Calypso in the near future. I have another picture which I will post soon that shows some distinctive little globs that I think are fruit of the mycellium sprouting. I am not sure about the names of this stuff. I am especially trying to find out what the life cycle of the mycellium is. I think it would be swell to sow the Calypso seed at the perfect time for a happy union with the necessary fungus parts. You may have noticed there are a lot of unknowns here. Alot of the information that is most reliable is in the form of research documents. They can be either unavailable for free to me or just way over my head and the words sometimes not in my dictionary. Often I will read a very scientific report and not get hardly any of it but by the time I have looked up words and read it a few times it starts to make sense. The plan at this point is to hopefully have seed pods to sell this fall, hand pollinated from my own property. I will, of course, make sure some seed is broadcast and returned to nature. I just want to be able to carry on with the work and I think this would be a source of funds. I will probably have whole pods for sale as well as seed in packets. I have a few more excellent pictures from Sarah that will be coming soon.

A few words for now...

2006-04-21T16:45:00.000-07:00

I have been busy hand pollinating, caging and making notes. I promise a big post and lots of new pictures soon. There is alot of learning going on around here. One thing I am so happy to share is that the link I have posted in my links section to the terrorchid board is in no way associated with the German site of terrorchid that belongs to a world famous orchid thief! Do not confuse the two. If you don't believe me go check the UK Hardy Orchid Society and see what they say near the bottom of the page. I really love the terrorchid forum. It is based in Belgium and has been hugely helpful to me. I am so glad it is in no way connected to the orchid terrorist of Germany!

Everything eats this orchid!

2006-04-11T19:31:00.000-07:00

This has been a spring of wake up calls for my Calypso adventure. Some of the flowering plants that I put cages of one inch chicken wire over have been eaten! I am now trying to outsmart one of the wiliest creatures around-the WOOD RAT! This animal is hard to keep out of anything it wants to get to. The two flowers that were eaten were from cages that were not tucked in tight at the bottom, just enough room for the rat to slither in and munch the blooms. Several hundred feet away are big displays of Calypso flowers in a more open area, they are doing fine. The rat likes brushy cover and I have too much of that in my grow area. One of the flowers that the rat chopped off it's stem was lying on the ground in a still fresh condition and has been brought in the house for dissection. I am going to try and figure out how to hand pollinate the flowers. I sure could use some help with this if anyone knows what I should do please speak up! So add the woodrat to the list of Calypso predators along with snails, slugs, deer, tromping humans and cattle, squirrels, and probably birds! I have a friend coming over to take pictures with a fancy camera as soon as the now famous rain lets up. I hope there are some flowers left so that I can post some professional photos.

I am adding here that I read recently that Blue Jays eat calypso. I believe it. I have seen fresh bulb shaped holes where plants used to be. The remaining unprotected plants on my place are being heavily predated. Some are sending up second flowers or so it appears after the first ones are eaten. This must be expensive for the plant! I will soon send a picture of wild Calypso at work in their little fortress's, making seed for the world!

Calypso in the rain...

2006-04-03T16:45:00.000-07:00

All of the local flowers are heavy with the wet and drooping. This one came out a little too pink in the picture. You can see the future seed bed. The Calypso in the picture was already growing here when I built the bed around it. Unlike the Calypsos I have transplanted, this one knew no root disturbance. Oh those brittle and precious roots! Each bulb has one or two of these white roots and they snap off like you wouldn't believe.

Lots of Calypso flowers, no bees, yet

2006-04-01T17:18:00.000-08:00

There has been 80 inches of rain here this season. The calypso flowers are getting hammered with rain and hail. Many of the flowers that opened in mid-February have drooped into a limp flag, clinging to the top of the bloom stem. No sign of stem elongation or pod formation anywhere. New flowers continue to push up and I still have hope. I was able to catch three pods last year without any protection for the flowers. It remains to be seen if I am able to collect seedpods from the orchid flowers I have caged this year. A change in the weather would make a big difference but the local forecast is for more of the same wet weather. It would be great to have a week of sun. In the seedbox things are looking the same. No news there. The dogs and I have serious cabin fever. I came back three weeks early from Mexico and it has rained every day but one that looked like it wanted to. More soon, hopefully the big news will be lots of Calypso Orchid babies! If this project does become do-able I will be fencing and landscaping the main nursery area but until I know it is a go I am having to restrain myself. Patience is the key here...

Open forum and Guest book

2006-02-24T20:12:00.000-08:00

The Calypso Orchids began blooming here, yesterday.

It occurs to me that this blogsite needs a place where people can leave comments without any specific relationship to a particular post. I would very much prefer it that all questions get posted so that everyone gets the benefit of the exchange and not sent to me personally. The reason for this is that if a question is worth asking there are probably others with the same question that are too shy to post. If at all possible it is best to share information with everybody. Plus, I end up spending alot of time because I like to give thorough answers and often the answers are worth a read by blog guests. So here is a place to just say Hello, report a missing link, leave links you think others might appreciate, comment on the blog in general not to any specific post,or inquire about my growing conditions or seed. I will be gone for 6 weeks, returning to my home computer where all my pictures and links are until mid-April, 2006. I won't be blogging on here much but I will respond to comments and emails. As far as people wanting to buy seed, I have no idea what to sell it for or how to package it. My seed is harvested when the seed pod dries and the stem is completely dried up. Often the pod has begun to rupture but any spilled seed is caught by a socklike hood. This seed is not sterilized and I would have a hard time pouring bleach on anything. So if anybody wants to get me into the seed business I will need help with the particulars.
Please use this post as a place to sound off or any post for that matter. If you can't decide where to post, this is the place. I look forward to hearing from you.

And yet another Mystery Mold....

2006-02-23T21:55:00.000-08:00

I went over the links on the page and got them all working, sorry to all for the sloppy blogmanship. I am adding a picture of another mold. This one was found on a mold observation expedition in the woods. It was on the underside of the Redwood log. I really appreciate help identifying this stuff. I am not a scientist and I don't have a microscope. So please take a look at both of the mold pictures and leave your 2 cents worth. If your opinion is worth more than 2 cents, unlike me, you ARE a scientist, just let us know you are an expert so we will know it might be indeed a fact. I just realized that I need to take alot of info with me to Mexico or I won't be able to access anything online. I won't have access to all of my handy shortcuts. I better get those packed, too.

The magnificent WHITE Calypso var: forma alba

2006-02-22T21:34:00.000-08:00

I may have gotten the name wrong but there is a great picture of the snow white Calypso at the following link.

The FABULOUS WHITE CALYPSO var:americana

It is breathtaking. I found the picture on a new site I just found. I am posting this and going back to browse the depths of information on Calypso on the site. WOW! This place is a must for Calypso lovers. It also has a huge database of other plants. I had at least three of my major questions answered in just a quick look. I also found the following on var:occidentalis-

Link to occidentalis information

There is another page for Calypso I haven't even looked at. There is a link to a Native Plant Propagation Database on the pages when you get there. They sum up my feelings pretty well.

Does anyone want to venture a guess...

2006-02-21T20:43:00.000-08:00

I am posting this picture of a mass of white threads growing under a redwood board. Would someone please take a look and a guess as to what this is? It was damp and dark under the board. This stuff grows wherever the conditions suit it here. I am trying to get it to grow in my seed boxes but I don't really know what I am doing! Help!

A few odds and ends of interest...

2006-02-21T18:26:00.000-08:00

I may get time to make one more post before I leave for several weeks in Mexico. I have friends there who are working to set up a lab for tissue culture of orchids. I will be checking in to get any messages when I can. I wanted to leave a link or two here to share with everyone. There is alot of confusion about Calypso, her growing and germination needs and availability for collectors. I am not going into that here but the authority I send people to most often is the USDA plant database. This is good solid info with maps and pictures. Enjoy!

http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CABU

I am also very excited about the work being done by the Orchid Conservation Coalition. I have been emailing back and forth with the administrator of that site and I would like to quote him, Mark Sullivan said:

" I have read your blog. You have picked a difficult
project, as Calypso bulbosa has a reputation of being
difficult if not impossible to grow ex situ. They use
to say the same thing of Cypripedium. acaule, so it
is just a matter of figuring out what works."

" I do think what you are doing is interesting and
important."
end quote

Here is the link to the Orchid Conservation site.
 I would love to be a member someday and be able to
 use the trademark but I'm not there yet because I
have nothing to sell. If I ever do I will subscribe
 and support the idea with pride.

http://www.orchidconservationcoalition.org/join.html

I am posting a picture of the newest seed box. This one is open to native soil
on the bottom and has alot more old branches and coarse material that the
mycorhiza love to grow on. I wanted to get it going so that the mycorhiza will
get a headstart on next fall's sowing of collected seed. It is wonderful to
have a tank of rainwater available up the hill. I can keep things moist and
happy. I put large boards on top of both the current working box that has seed
already since last August and the new future seed box to encourage the
mycorhiza which loves the dark and even moisture. Note the tomato cage with
the little green leaves under it, that is a Calypso with a flower bud that
was growing in the area for the new box. I won't move it until it is dormant,
if then.
>

The Test box, wherein lies my hopes....

2006-02-16T22:06:00.000-08:00

This is the test box. It is made of old redwood milled from the logs that were already here and down when I bought this place.These five Calypsos were lifted May 30, 2005. They were growing up in the debris caught in the wires of an old fence slated for removal. This is the prototype of the boxes I want to be able to sell. The plan is to offer them for sale to people who have suitable habitat in order to repatriate Calypso in her native land. The whole box would be pressed into the earth under Redwoods where she could flower and, if the pollinator is still around, make thousands of seed each season that would find a happy predator protected and foot traffic free home. Knowing what I know and what I don't know, I am waiting to see if this will work as a long term investment for people. That is, that the plants are growing and thriving in this box setup and not just living off of their reserves and declining. Tomorrow I am off to buy another redwood tree to supplement the shade in the nursery area. I will also try and find some calipers for measuring the bulb sizes to see if I am on the right track. Yup, that's me in the picture and one of my dogs, too. As of this writing the plants in the test box appear fine and have two flower buds pushing up but this is meaningless unless the corms are staying full and fat. So I will measure them ASAP in order to have a baseline to measure them by in the future.

This is the seed box with it's legs still on...

2006-02-16T21:44:00.000-08:00

I am thinking all these boxes are getting confusing for the reader. I have three total right now the big box on legs, the seed box pictured here and the test box. The legs came off the seed box today as I detailed in the previous post. This is where I thought I was going to find two babies and I found eight. I am transplanting in-situ plants only where I have to for the project and wish I didn't have to move them this time of year. I am afraid I am going to find out the hard way how much these can take. It is useful information but such a price! I will keep the blog posted on how they do.

Marilyn Light was right about this one....

2006-02-16T20:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I crawled under the seedbox to remove Calypso growing there. I thought there were 2 but I found 8 little babies and moved them to the big box. The picture beside this post is of the big box when it was first built. Today a friend and I set about the task of getting the smaller seedbox, pictured in the above post, down on the ground. We lifted the seed box up with a house jack and balanced it on blocks and boards in order to be able to cut the legs off. I was so looking forward to doing all my tending without the bending but that will have to wait. Well, we got the legs cut off of the seedbox. We guessed it weighs about 150 pounds. It more or less went down in increments as we raised it and removed chunks of wood. There was a little tipping at one point and then the whole thing went down but nothing was shaken up. I lifted a couple of pieces of 2 inch by ten inch milled Douglas fir that was lying nearby to clean up a little. Those boards went down over two years ago when I so foolishly stacked my lumber there when I moved onto the this land. I still agonize over how much I messed up by branching up the redwoods to make way for the road and clearing the frighteningly thick brush that was such a fire hazard. I did not realize there were Calypsos here. It wasn't even on my radar. Under that board were two Calypsos. At first I thought they must have germinated under there but when I lifted them they had no bulbs. They were both white with no chlorophyl, They both had unopened single leaves, one had a tiny flower bud, also white. I tucked them into the big box and I hope they recover. They had been living on their reserves, no sunlight, for at least two years. This is what Marilyn Light said could happen with Calypso. People think they are ok but they are slowly dying and trying desperately to reproduce. Not that anyone would deliberately put a board on their orchids but it does prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that calypso can survive on the reserves stored in the corm. SO, here is what this all leads up to. I need to get some calipers and measure the corms in my test box. If they are bigger at the end of the season my test box is working. If they are smaller it means I am forcing the bulb to live off of it's reserves and I need to get back to the drawing board. This is a much more measurable test of success, I am very happy! One more note, I am not going to cut the legs off the big box. When/if I have more plant material to work with I will try again to grow Calypso in more of a bench setup. One more note, I took temperature readings on the boxes and compared it to native soil readings-surprise number 123! The ground was warmer than the boxes by almost 8 degrees.

Who said raising orchids is a genteel craft?

2006-02-10T19:58:00.000-08:00

Todays post will be brief because I am beat! It was warm here today and it was time to beginning leveling a pad for the new holding tank. I have put an 8 foot round trough on top of the hill to catch rainwater. The trough filled a few weeks ago and I needed to plumb it into the tank down the hill so it could gravity fill the 2800 gallon holding tank with pure rain water for the little nursery. I am thankful that just about everything I have needed for this project was already here on the property. When I bought this place there were hundreds of feet of chicken wire nailed to trees, big old redwood logs laying on the slopes abandoned 40 years ago. The redwood will be used for boxes for the orchids when I can be sure they will be happy in them. They do love to grow next to the old wood so I think this will be a success. I have lately decided to do my first years growing in the boxes, including the seed box, on the ground for the cooling and insulating that is of major importance in the hot summers. Anyway there I was dripping sweat working with a pick and shovel moving heavy soil away so the tank can sit there. Raising orchids this way is not for the faint of heart.

That was a short lived high....

2006-01-27T19:19:00.000-08:00

I was really on a cloud with the appearance of the little shoot in my test box of transplanted Calypso's. It was a weed. Doesn't look nearly as beautiful as it did before it sprouted two opposite leaves. It is not a baby calypso. It would have been great to see signs of new life. Now to check the seed box. Sigh. I have been gardening all my life and this is the longest I have ever had to wait for any germination. This is made worse by the possibility that I may have made one or more of a thousand possible wrong decisions collecting, storing, handling or planting the seed. I promised in this blog to share all the good and the bad. So, there you have it, the non-event. Tomorrow I will be carefully placing tomato cages draped with bird net over the flower spikes that are emerging. Some of them are two or three inches high and sporting a definite bud on the tip. I would love to take daily pictures of this and make a time lapse animation. It would be great to see the flower turn 180 degrees and open. But for now I need to protect the emerging flower buds from the deer. This is being done so that I may collect seed again this year. Imagine, I am going to build another redwood seed box, fill it with forest debris and get it ready for another try at seed propogation. This is where I have to decide how to handle the second seed crop before the first has done anything. In fact, it may NEVER do anything! I have read that the seed is good for six years so I won't be dumping those boxes for a long time. Add to that the tiny germinated seed spends at least a year underground after it germinates and you have a possible seven year wait. Oddly, that is how long Oddyseus languished on Ogygia with Kalypso. Whoever named this plant after the Goddess Kalypso was inspired and absolutely nailed the habits of this plant. I marvel at how eerily strong the similarities are between the Goddess and the plant. Ok. maybe the seed won't take seven years but the bloom might. I went to the library and checked out Homer's, Odyssey. It was a pretty good read. I think Homer meant it as a comedy.

What have we here?

2006-01-23T20:31:00.000-08:00

I am posting twice today because I am pretty excited. It was a beautiful sunny day here today after weeks of rain. We had 6 inches in 24 hours during one storm. I have been running the generator to charge the batteries and spending time on orchid forums. I am learning alot about the Calypso Orchid tribe. Not alot is known about this "Hider of the North." But, today I saw something wonderful. Last winter I transplanted five Calypso's of various ages from a problem area and put them into a redwood box. The oldest in the box bloomed last spring. Now it and the next largest leaf are both sending up a flower. As if this weren't fantastic enough there is a tiny, I mean about a half inch tall little stem bowed over at the tip with the beginnings of the tiniest single leaf. This may be a baby orchid that spent the last year developing in the box and is now sending up the first leaf. I don't know for sure until the leaf opens but I am very encouraged. I remember a couple of white BB sized things that went in the box and I had a feeling they were tiny corms. So, today we may have had the emergence of a baby Calypso and will know what to look for in the germination beds if anything ever happens there. It was also necessary to move more Calypso's to make room for the holding tank that will hold rainwater for them. The transplants are doing fine and two of them are sending up flowers. They are in a ten foot by 40 inch by one foot deep redwood box on the same natural mix. I will be moving more distressed colonies into the box this winter from my property. If I can prove to myself that I have a high quality product I will make them available one at a time on ebay. I have been unemployed for a year and this is a very long term project. A little financial influx would help to keep me going. These will be beautiful redwood boxes with at least 5 plants each. This is what I hope will be possible. We will see. Remember, these are orchid seed and plants on private property where they are abundant and thriving. I want to see Calypso re-naturalized in areas where she has been pushed out by grazing, logging, deer, "the whole disaster." I am also trying to prove that Calypso can be grown from seed and in redwood boxes if kept cool and fed with redwood leaves and leafmold. It is working for me but my little experiment is right under big old redwoods and there are Calypso's all over the place.

sowing the Calypso orchid seed...

2006-01-23T20:01:00.000-08:00

This turned out to be a real challenge. Lot's of ways to really blow it on this step. I gave it alot of thought and research, spent alot of time just staring at patches of Calypso's seeing how nature does it. I had read somewhere never to get the seeds near plastic. I believe it. The way they stick themselves with static cling to things, getting them plastered on plastic would be a nightmare. So I decided to take the easy way out. I bought a brand new spray bottle, removed the pump. Filled and refilled the glass jar holding the seeds with distilled water and sprayed those tiny spindles onto the nursery box for germinating. I am now getting the picture that I will see nothing for at least a year out of the box. The box was filled with my version of the forest floor with a deep layer of redwood leaves and sticks. The tiny seeds disappeared into the damp darkness of the leaves.This blog will certainly hear about it if anything develops.

The seed pod of calypso occidentalis

2006-01-02T00:37:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of the seed capsule before it was wrapped in floating row cover and tied with string to try and keep the seeds in. The row cover allowed the capsule to breathe and ripen naturally. When the capsules were harvested in August the sides had split vertically into three sections that split away and curled outward and upward from the bottom of the capsule. The spindle like seeds were mostly still in the capsule, a few were collected from the cloth and brushed with a small paint brush into the jar with the other capsules and into the refrigerator for three months. If I had known how the capsule opened or how tiny the seeds were I would have been even more unsure of myself than I was. Ignorance was bliss.

Calypso Orchid Nursery

2005-11-28T19:38:00.000-08:00

With the next break in the rain I will be sowing the seeds I collected last summer!

These are tiny floating seeds!

2005-08-16T22:27:00.000-07:00

Here are the seeds in the jar. They look like dust clinging to the glass. They are very clinging. My fingers and the glass in the jar were covered with the tiny seeds clinging as if by static charge.

Calypso Bulbosa Seed

2005-08-16T21:34:00.000-07:00

August 15, 2005 Finally the day arrived to open the packets containing, hopefully, the seed of the Calypso orchid. A day was selected that was windless and bright inside the cabin. The camera was ready and I carefully peeled open the packets. I had a small clean wide mouth jar ready to hold whatever I found. I first unwrapped the aluminum foil and then cut away the remay holding the seed capsule. I was very careful to keep the packets horizontal to prevent the seed from floating out of the loose covering.

2005-05-30T16:01:00.000-07:00

These leaves look especially healthy. One of the common names for calypso bulbosa occidentalis is Redwood orchid. The rough tree bark visible in most of these pictures is the base of redwood trees. I am working on a theory that at one time, back when the old growth was so thick it supported arial islands of decaying material these orchids were growing up in the trees. copyright/calypso orchid project

2005-05-30T15:53:00.000-07:00

Calypso bulbosa trio looking healthy and happy. March 2005.
copyright/calypso orchid project

2005-05-30T15:21:00.000-07:00

Calypso bulbosa occidentalis growing in deep shade on about four inches of fallen and rotting redwood leaves, underlain by moist black leaf mold thick with mycelium.
copyright/calypso orchid project

calypsochallenge

2005-05-28T14:47:00.000-07:00

Three days ago, May 25, 2005, a friend and I put little remay cloth bags, chicken wire, a stake with ties and a tomato cage over ripening calypso bulbosa seed pods. I have spent hours pouring over websites and books gathering information on propagating this elusive beauty. I have several hundred of the plants growing naturally and happily in the woods here. After much soul searching and websurfing I have found that, lol, alot of the information on the web is not useful to me. I find observation is a powerful tool. It is my intention to provide growing conditions as identical as possible to what I see as an already successful technique employed by nature. Please check in often and feel free to contact me. I will post developments as events occur, successes and failures.