Purple-stained Laelia

Let's talk about the spring, summer, and fall, and some of the really cool blooms that I have been able to be given by my collection over the year.

One of my favorite times of the year is, I... as I like to refer to it, uh, in late June and early July, coincidentally close to my birthday, the Cattleya purpurata season.

If you've been in orchids for any length of time, you probably heard of this plant before, sometimes even referred to as Laelia purpurata.

And you may have noticed these days, including myself and us taxonomy nerds, we're writing it differently, as Cattleya purpurata.

So let me clear up this name thing first, um, quickly, and then we'll get into why this plant is so special to me.

So for a long time, the Brazilian laelias, which includes the purpurata, were kept in the genus Laelia.

Then DNA work in the 2000s, taxonomists concluded that these Brazilian species are really closer genetically to a Cattleya than to the Mexican laelias, such as the Laelia anceps.

So they were moved to the Cattleya family.