Cymbidium ensifolium 'Zhude Su' (Broad-leaf Renhua Large-flowered Suxin) Variety Introduction
The Zhude Su plant is robust, with dark green leaves, 30-45 cm long, 1.2-2 cm wide, semi-upright, with rounded blunt leaf tips, inconspicuous fine serrations along the leaf margins, and a thick, fleshy leaf texture that is smooth, fine and glutinous, rich in luster. The flowers are large, nearly twice the size of ordinary Dahe Su, intensely fragrant, with a long blooming period; flowers can be seen from June to November. This orchid...
Zhude Su is also known as "Broad-leaf Renhua Large-flowered Suxin" -- in 1962, Chairman Zhu De sent two guards, together with a flower engineer from what was then Shaoguan Park, to Renhua to look for orchids. They found more than a dozen seedlings of a Dahe Su that had been passed down in the family for generations at the home of a village committee secretary in Fuxi Town, Renhua County, and the variety was named after this.
It is also said that "Zhude Su" is also called "Wuping Su". Marshal Zhu De fought during the war years at the strategic Shijing Ridge in Wuping, an area rich in orchids, and the Marshal loved orchids. "Zhude Su" once won the gold award at a national orchid competition.
Flowers: slender stems with large flowers; slender-stemmed flowers generally have stems that bend easily, but this variety has hard, strongly woody stems that do not need support and do not bend easily; the flowers are lotus-shaped, large and intensely fragrant.
Leaves: on the tall side, with thick, heavy, smooth leaf flesh; when grown in shade the leaf flesh is especially thick, and the leaf bone can barely be felt at the leaf tip.
Pseudobulb: oval, most notably bearing a ring of yellow finger-like markings once mature, which is its signature trait, becoming more obvious with age.
