Something strange happened this morning

Earlier today I was feeding my plants of Phalaenopsis schilleriana with a high potassium fertilizer to prepare them for their February to March show, a flowering event that takes place only once a year and has become a source of constant early year anticipation for me. With those pink, fragrant flowers, who wouldn't? Most of my schillerianas are on the second floor of my house, while there are only two on the uppermost level, one of which is still too small to bloom. Except for the small one, all my other schillerianas have inflorescences already peeking out, or at least that is what I think. One of the quirks of this species is that these plants will often send out spikes which terminate not with buds, but a keiki, much to the consternation of many growers. This often happens when a plant is denied a cooling period prior to the expected flowering season, but even in areas with the correct climate, schillerianas will dish out an unamusing joke on you that’s one year in the making. So to have a certain degree of assurance that I will get the last laugh, I soak the individual plants in a rich broth of potassium-laced water before hanging them again to their respective places, a ritual that takes place once a week for two months. I was in the third floor fertilizing my other plants too and have just finished with P. philippinensis and getting ready to get one of the only two schillerianas, when suddenly I caught a whiff of fragrance, a scent I know all too well for it’s the perfume of P. schilleriana. As I mentioned earlier, all my plants of this species except one have developing inflorescences and therefore, there are no flowers yet. The only orchids in the immediate vicinity that were in bloom were a couple of oberonias, two plants of P. equestris, a Dendrobium dearei, Pteroceras philippinensis, and Flickingeria praetermissa; these plants either have unscented flowers, or the flowers emanate a very different odor. The nearest neighbor with plants of P. schilleriana is about 40 m away, and like my plants, theirs aren’t yet in flower. So this vestige of perfume, which lasted for only about 3 seconds, was quite unnerving. Perhaps this flowering-size plant is telling me somehow that I did not have to worry as it won’t disappoint when the time comes.

In my travels inside forests I have also caught the scent of unseen flowers, but this is the first time that I detected one that is distinctly P. schilleriana’s.