Beautiful Sunday - Orchid Factory Part 4

Here's a few lady slipper orchids for this #beautifulsunday

These lady slipper orchids have a pitcher shape on the bottom. They belong to the paphiopedilum family and come in all shapes and sizes. There are around 80 different varieties in this family.

This one has some nice bold spots on its ear buds, that's what I call them anyway, I'm sure there is a more technical term for the different pedals.

This one also has bold spots but really long drooping rabbit style ears. The purple at the tips is a nice touch.

Here's a tall skinny one with really long side pedals. The orange is a nice bold color as well.

This is an almost solid yellow one with the top pedal showing some white edging. The bloom on this one was really large as well.

Here's a similar looking yellow one with a spotted top pedal. The orchid farmers like to try and mix various flowers of the same species together to breed for a dominant feature. I suspect this is descended from quite a few spotted top pedal predecesors.

This one is in the same family as the first one in this post. The pedals can vary quite a bit in shape and size. The orchid farm likes to try and polinate the largest pedals.

This pair has some bold purple chins. They all kind of resemble different cartoon character faces.

Here's another purple chinned one. The white really helps accent the purple.

Here's a deep reddish purple one.

And another one from the same family. This one is a bit darker with more stripes on the top pedal.

Yet another one from the same family. The orchid farmer said this one is worth around 300 dollars since the goal of the orchid breeders is to try and get a black orchid. The grower has been trying for 30 years and has come this close to black.

I liked the almost black orchid so much I bought a budding one. Who knos if it will be a bright purple or a rare black one once it finally opens up... If it is a deep purple I can probably sell it back to the grower for a profit lol