Introduction and Appreciation of the Chunlan 'Yidai Shuangjiao' Variety

 Yidai Shuangjiao: This is the exceptionally fine Chunlan 'Yidai Shuangjiao', unique to the noble Guoxiang Garden! It is registered as No. 0330 in the "Chinese Orchid Directory". Yidai Shuangjiao was seen and bought at the Tengchong Orchid Show in Yunnan Province on January 1, 2008. At the time it was three plants with dragon roots, sold for 300,000 at a price of 100,000 per plant, and many people attending the orchid show at the time knew about it. I am now uploading this pot of 'Yidai Shuangjiao' from my orchid garden for friends to see and learn about, and everyone can see from the pictures that I began photographing and saving images from the moment Yidai Shuangjiao had flower buds. As I have said before, once Yidai Shuangjiao blooms, it always produces double flowers, and when strong it opens three flowers. Because the mother plant of this one is an old plant, and there is also another flower bud, it can only open double flowers. From the pictures everyone can appreciate the true flower form and posture of 'Yidai Shuangjiao'. My 'Yidai Shuangjiao' is absolutely the finest among all true three-star butterflies (Sanxingdie) orchids, a good flower that can be passed down through generations, and an object that people will pursue in orchid growing for a long time to come. Yidai Shuangjiao stands out uniquely for its dignified bearing, magnificence and noble elegance. Moreover, I can say here with full responsibility that this is the most stable Sanxingdie orchid in the whole world, comparable to the Lianbanlan 'Sanyang Kaitai' that once sold for tens of millions per plant, and 'Sanyang Kaitai' has only one photograph; afterwards no one ever truly saw the real face of that flower again. Yidai Shuangjiao, on the other hand, readily produces leaf butterflies (Yedie). The characteristic of this flower is that when it blooms it has at least double flowers (which is why I now dare to upload it here and dare to say such things), and it often opens three flowers as well, and its leaf butterflies are very beautiful! Here, so that everyone can distinguish the true 'Yidai Shuangjiao' from 'Nanbei Sanxing', I will explain the differences:

      First: 'Yidai Shuangjiao' readily produces leaf butterflies, and butterflies easily appear on the leaves, but the butterflies sometimes fade as the leaves age. The leaf blades show a water-ripple pattern, with a leaf width of 1.0-1.3 cm, whereas Nanbei Sanxing is generally only 0.5-0.7 cm. When Yidai Shuangjiao is strong, the leaves can have 7 blades (Nanbei Sanxing generally has at most 5 leaves), and the pseudobulb is very large, just like 'Hurui Die'. When this flower is strong it opens three flowers, and they are all very stable, at least opening 2 flowers, hence the name 'Yidai Shuangjiao' (whereas Nanbei Sanxing at most opens double flowers, and often opens single flowers).

Second: The difference between the shoots of 'Yidai Shuangjiao' and 'Nanbei Sanxing' is that the shoots of 'Yidai Shuangjiao' are almost red, while the shoots and sheaths of 'Nanbei Sanxing' are much paler.

Third: 'Yidai Shuangjiao' flowers very readily; generally even a single leading shoot will bloom, which is also why 'Yidai Shuangjiao' has never had a high propagation rate, and only now has more than 20 heads. In addition, the leaves of 'Yidai Shuangjiao' are more numerous and more imposing than those of 'Nanbei Sanxing', so as long as one truly understands these two flowers, they are very easy to tell apart. Flowers that appear similar on the surface are in fact two completely different grades of flower!