FENNELL’S ORCHID NEWS 

THE SAGA OF T. A. 
FENNELL, JR. 
‘(It’s True and Embellished Versions) 
By T. A. FENNELL, Sr. 
Tom, Jr., graduated from Harvard 
last February, after having majored in 
natural sciences which he chose of his 
own volition. I was glad ito see him 
study the natural sciences as I think 
he will get a great deal of pleasure out 
of his interest in them. 
Just before we opened the Orchid 
Shop in Burdine’s last fall Tom wrote, 
and we had printed, a leaflet entitled 
“Tt’s Easy to Grow Orchids in South 
Florida.” We have distributed many 
thousands of these leaflets and have 
had numerous complimentary com- 
ments on them. But a story one man 
told Tom the other day itops them all. 
Tom had given this man one of the 
leaflets and after he had read “By T. A. 
Fennell, Jr.,” ithe man said to Tom: 
“T know this guy Tom Fennell, Jr., and 
I know an interesting story about him.” 
This, of course, interested Tom, who 
replied, “You do?’ and on_ second 
thought, ‘‘What is the story?’’ and the 
man continued, ‘‘Well, it seems his old 
man sent the boy up East to some big 
school, Harvard or Yale, to study law. 
The kid took it and graduated, ithen 
came to Miami and started practice. 
Neither he nor his wife liked Miami nor 
the law business, so they moved down 
near Homestead a few years ago and 
started raising orchids. His old man 
didn’t like that—but the kid persevered 
and now he’s getting famous, has a won- 
derful place and is making a pile of 
money, so his old man feels better 
about it.” 
Tom says he stood there, his mouth 
open, unable to reply—and didn’t re- 
gain his senses until after the visitor 
had departed. The facts are that Tom 
is still unmarried, didn’t study law, and 
hasn’t made his “pile of money” yet, and 
his “old man” is in the orchid business, 
too, and has been aiding and abetting 
him all along. 
CULTURAL HINTS 
(Continued from Page 2) 
for poor roots. If the osmunda is begin- 
ning to rot replace it and try to give the 
plants enough room ahead of the leading 
growths to allow three to five more 
growths. Be sure to provide the plants 
with excellent drainage—the slit orchid 
pots are excellent as they assure good 
drainage and aeration. 
Air—Don’t forget that epiphytic or- 
chids are “air” plants. They need and 
want large amounts of fresh air. When- 
ever possible have your vents open to 
allow a good circulation of fresh air, 
particularly on bright sunny days. In 
frost free regions grow your plants in 
lath houses or houses with glass roofs 
and slat sides. 
CATTLEYA AURANTICA AS A 
PARENT 
We have been having a lot of fun 
recently comparing first flowers on a 
number of first and second generation 
crosses trom C. aurantiaca—the little 
bright orange cluster cattleya from Cen- 
tral America. These hybrid flowers 
range from bright yellow through many 
shades of peach and apricot and in size 
from 2 to 6 inches in width. All have 
good texture and fair shape. All have 
yellow or yellow and lavender lips. 
We are now busily engaged in making 
further crosses and in planning still 
more, Probably we will not produce any 
very large flowers with this but they 
will be strong, free flowering plants that 
bloom in the winter and of interesting 
shades. 
We now have a number of plants of 
C. aurantiaca in case any of you are in- 
terested in trying it out. The flowers 
are small but it blooms in February- 
March and its very bright. It crosses 
easily with Cattleyas, Laelias and Epi- 
dendrums. 
VANDA 
SANDERIANA 
This glorious species is certainly one 
of the finest of all orchids. Its flowers 
are the largest of all the Vandas and 
are usually light pink in the 
sepals and petals with a heavy 
tesselation of brown over the 
lower sepals. The lip is usually 
dark or greenish brown. Some 
types have nearly white sepals 
and petals while others are 
quite pink. The intensity of 
brown markings also varies. 
The greatest variation in the 
species, is, however, in the 
shape of the flowers of diffeent 
plants, many varieties have 
spatulate rather narrow sepals 
and petals and others recurve 
the sides of the segments. The 
finest and most showy varieties 
produce nearly round flowers 
with wide, overlapping seg- 
ments. These types are truly 
magnificent. 
V. Sanderiana was found in 
the Philippines by English col- 
lectors in 1881. It has always 
been rare in collections and is 
high priced. It usually blooms 
only once a year—in the fall. 
V. Sanderiana has been wide- 
ly used as a parent and some 
very fine hybrids have been 
raised from it. Its habit of 
flowering only once a year, is 
however, handed on to most of 
its progeny and free flowering 
Sanderiana hybrids are rare. 
Vanda Sanderiana var. Triumphans 
Our very fine large round variety with blush pink 
sepals and petals, covered as shown with a 
light brown tesselation. 
TIME FLIES 
The past six months at the Orchid 
Jungle have been busy ones. We’ve 
had the heaviest crops of flowers we 
have ever had. We are supplying the 
plants and flowers for the Burdine 
orchid and garden shop in their Miami 
store. We’ve had more visitors than 
ever before and we have built a new 
growing house and potting shed that 
more ithan doubles our growing ca- 
pacity. We needed this space badly 
as we have had a hard time finding 
room for many of our plants. As we 
will repot nearly all of our mature 
plants this year and as they have more 
than tripled in size during the past two 
years—we will fill all our new space 
this summer. 
We have just completed our first year 
of feeding all plants in the place with 
the following results. We have pro- 
duced approximately four ‘times as many 
flowers as we produced last year on 
only about 20 percent more plants. We 
have greatly strengthened all of our 
plants and our seedlings are growing 
faster and stronger than ever before. 
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