Phalaenopsis bellina with a long long history

This is an interesting plant with a long, long, long history. 

To start with, the shape of the flower of this plant is not spectacular. 

I first came across this plant about 15 -20 years ago in Woon Leng nursery.  Mr Teo Peng Seng used it as a stud plant for many of his violacea hybrids.  Back in those days this was referred to as Phalaenopsis violacea (Borneo Form).

What are the special qualities of this plant?

1. It is a wild collected plant.

2. The flowers are HUGE.

So if you combine the 2 together, you will see the foresight of Mr. Teo.  Many people who have seen wild collected plants with big flowers will know that most of them have narrow flowers with backward curving sepals and petals and also what we refer to as "cowboy" legs.  Not pretty at all.

Not this one.

Somehow it landed in MH nursery after many years and now that MH nursery is no longer operating, the plant ended up in my collection.  MH sold a cutting to another collector a few months before closing the nursery and i bought the mother plant from him after that.

At its prime, the flower is more than 3 inches from tip to tip. (I must emphasize that it is not the vertical length).  In fact i went around to measure some of the bellinas in MH nursery and they all exceeded 3 inches (tip to tip).  Some of the flowers are huge and rounded - but they were all created by MH, not wild.

So here it is.

  To every visitor:

Happy New Year!!