What kind of orchid is the Ice Beauty Jianlan? An introduction to its variety characteristics

Ice Beauty originated in the forest area at the border of Meilin Town, Nanjing County, Fujian Province and Yongding. As I recall, it first bloomed in 2003. It was discovered among the wild-collected orchids purchased and cultivated by a local flower grower surnamed Han (who no longer grows orchids now). His orchid nursery is the nursery Liu Zhiyun has now. At that time, Liu Zhiyun's father's home was right across the way.

I remember it was a rainy day. I went to Liu Zhiyun's home to hang out, and as we chatted, Liu Zhiyun said he had seen a Sijilan that was extremely white, a white his family had never seen in all their years of growing flowers. The moment I heard that, I got excited and immediately told him to go buy it and sell it to me. Liu Zhiyun went out in the rain and came back after a short while. From about 20 m away, I saw that very unusual white. After so many years of growing flowers, I had never seen a white-flowered variety as stunning as that. He brought back four plants in total. Besides Ice Beauty, there were also three red-flowered ones. Liu Zhiyun asked 200 yuan for all four plants, and I bought them immediately without bargaining at all.

At that time, Ice Beauty had shoots growing on both sides, with four plants on one side and a single plant on the other, along with several old backbulbs. Liu Zhiyun kept the side with the single plant and several old backbulbs, and sold me the other side with the four flowering plants and several leafless old backbulbs. Because the coarse orchid nursery of the Han family had used paclobutrazol for shaping, this kind of plant was difficult to cultivate. Liu Zhiyun's single plant did not survive, and my four plants also grew very poorly in the first year. It was not until 2006 that they recovered and began to produce strong mature plants. Over the years, they have bloomed every year with stable flower color.