
Can you imagine an orchid that smells like freshly cut cedar and oak lumber mixed with caramel? Well, that’s what the flowers of Maxillaria variabilis smell like. It’s a small plant, at least each growth is small, but it quickly spreads all over its growing surface. Mine grows on a big tree fern slab, and has fairly quickly gone from just a tiny cutting to a large clump. The plant itself has flattened, oval-shaped pseudobulbs with a thin leaf or two on top. It’s not particularly attractive when out of bloom, but it can be spectacular when covered with flowers. It’s blooming now, with the flowers arising on short, stubby stalks from the base of the pseudobulbs. I have three varieties, one yellow, one orange, and one so dark red it’s almost black. Regardless of color, they all smell pretty much the same, with wood and caramel notes along with just a hint of toasted coconut. One of these days I may make a perfume based on Maxillaria variabilis, since it’s one of the more unique flower scents out there.

I think a lot of people don’t realize what a huge variety of fragrances orchids can have, but these two Maxillarias are perfect illustrations of orchids with strong but unconventional “orchid” scents.
I remember a Coelogyne, it wasn't pandurata, but similar. It smelled like Vick's Vapo Rub! Gail
ReplyDeleteHi Chris, I remember you from NWOS, and hate to disappoint you, but I only have the regular old red form of Maxillaria tenuifolia, as far as I know. Of course its possible that some of my outcross seedlings (I think I did 4) got two yellow recessive genes and someone who bought one from me has had it bloom out yellow. Where did you see the info about the different color forms? Now that I look at the post, it's Maxillaria variablis that I have all the different color forms of - not nearly as special!
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