Moth Orchid of Mindanao

I have had this beautiful Phalaenopsis for more than ten years in my garden in Malaysia without knowing what species it was until today when I posted my query on a internet gardening forum - http://www.greenculturesg.com/. It turns out to be Phalaenopsis stuartiana that originated from the jungles of Mindanao!

I was given a big branch full of baby plants (or keikis) of this orchid around 1998 and I tied it to a tree and let the plants spread. Even though I fully neglected it being a rather lazy gardener, it rewarded me with spikes of beautiful white blooms every once in a while, sometimes up to a hundred flowers. As the tree on which I first grew it toppled, I transfered the plants and keikis to other trees and gave some away. The photos in this post are of a recently transfered plant growing on my star-apple tree that has just flowered for the first time.

Phal. stuartiana has medium sized flowers and beautifully marbled and barred leaves, the flowers look very much like the more well-known Moon or Moth Orchid - Phal. amabilis - which has bigger flowers and plain green leaves and which is more difficult to grow. It grows quite readily when attached to living tree trunks in the shade and soon forms many plantlets; in favourable conditions it produces many flower spikes on which the open flowers look like dancing white moths.