SONOMA COUNTY ORCHID SOCIETY January 2013 A California Non-Profit 501 (c) (3) Corporation IN THIS ISSUE WE ARE EXCITED TO HAVE AS OUR JANUARY 8 SPEAKER, 1 RON PARSONS January SCOS Meeting Speaker Dinner Ron Parsons is considered by many to be one of the 2 finest flower photographers in the United States. His President’s Corner photography and encyclopedic know-ledge of orchids is Treasurer's Report known both nationally and internationally. He has been 3 photographing orchids, wildflowers, and almost every Board Highlights other kind of plant for over 25 years, and has a slide collection that numbers well over 80,000 slides! He went "digital" just over a year ago, and in this Membership Report short time has taken thousands of photos of orchids, wildflowers and other rare plants. Ron loves to Refreshments travel, photograph orchids and wildflowers in situ, visit orchid and other plant enthusiasts' collections, Thank You and most of all, to take photographs of plants and flowers that he likes. 4 Orchid Genera and their Ron's photos have been featured in journal articles, on book covers and in several books. Not only abbreviations does Ron photograph plants, but he has been growing orchids, cacti, and bromeliads for over thirty SKILL SESSION years, and carnivorous plants for ten. He grows an assortment of cool growing species under lights at 5 -6 his home in South San Francisco and a few more at an unheated greenhouse at his parents' home in Weird & Wild Burlingame. His collection is beautifully grown, and often the plants featured in his talks are from his 7 own collection. He willingly shares his knowledge about plant habitats and suggestions for culture with all who are interested. Upcoming Events 8 Ron Parsons is a member of the San Francisco Orchid Society, The Peninsula Orchid Society, The Newsletter Deadline Orchid Society of California, and the Bay Area Pleurothallid Alliance. Ron is also a member of the Spring Show Notice San Francisco Succulent and Cactus Society, and the American Gesneriad Society of San Francisco.i 9 Officers/Committee Chairs Orchid Links Please join us for dinner 10 with RON PARSONS Event Posters 11 at 5:00 p.m. at SIMPLY VIETNAM January Checklist 12 966 N. Dutton Ave., Santa Rosa Holiday Dinner Pics Directions Menu RSVP to Lynne Murrell at [email protected] by Tuesday, 1/8 at 12:00 noon . 500 species Page 1 SCOS January 2013 Newsletter PRESIDENT'S CORNER Dear Orchid Friends, Happy New Year! Let’s roll into the NewYear with renewed enthusiasm to make our Sonoma County Orchid Society the best it can be! We have Ron Parsons and his beautiful, award winning photography to start off our January meeting. His orchid HAPPY NEW YEAR knowledge is truly amazing. Now that the busy holiday season is over, we can look forward to our fun spring show. Blooming in January Even though we have an extra 7 weeks to plan it, March29th will arrive rapidly. Let’s think of things that can help our Show Chair, Lynne Murrell, with planning and organizing. There are a lot of things to do to get this Show ready. Everyone needs to get involved in order to make this Show a success! It is due to YOUR efforts that make our SCOS a successful and fun organization! Volunteer, volunteer and volunteer, again! Congratulations to Kathie Hile, the SCOS Marie Waskow Award recipient for 2012! She really deserves it! She has volunteered countless hours and taken on a lot of jobs that make our Society run smoothly. Rlc. Calypso (Rhyncholaelia digbyana x See you in the New Year starting with our January 8th meeting! Cattleya bicolor) Susan Blooming in January TREASURER'S REPORT As most of you know, someone broke into our lockers, which are stored in our meeting room at the Vets Bldg. sometime between our July and August meetings. We have property insurance, but there is a $500 deductible and the property is subject to depreciation. To replace the stolen projector, spare bulb, laser pointer and extension cords cost us $1,029.61. We were reimbursed $606.34 from insurance so our net cost was $423.27. Just a reminder that we are a non-profit and donations are tax deductible. Beallara Smile Eri 'Prayoon' (Bllra. Tohama Glacier x Oda. Toroma x Oda. Ingera) CONGRATULATIONS Kathie Hile recipient of the 2012 Marie Wascow Award Page 2 SCOS January 2013 Newsletter Highlights of 12-18-12 Board Meeting Refreshments Ron Parsons will be our speaker at January meeting, and We are asking members to bring snacks to the monthly dinner will be at Simply Vietnam. Speakers for rest of meetings. Please check the following list to find out 2013 are not set yet. what month you are asked to participate. Sales tax is going up to 8.75% as of 1/1/13. Members with last names beginning with the letters: YTD we have a loss of $1,117.74, and that is $935.81 T–Z January, 2013 greater than last year at this time. We had to buy a new A–B February C – De March projector and bulb to replace ones that were stolen; we Di – Fo April have a new Marie Waskow plaque; and our rent is paid Fr – H May for all of calendar 2013 at the Vets Bldg. Normally our J – Le June rent is paid only thru fiscal year end 6/30, but the new Ice Cream Social July management company did a contract for the entire Li – M August calendar year. N–R September Bar-B-Q & Auction OctoberNo Meeting The holiday party was held at Legends and 32 people S November Holiday Dinner December In Lieu of Meeting attended. Net cost to Society was $27.90. Winner of the Marie Waskow award is Kathie Hile – congratulations! Thank you Lynne reported we have 11 vendors committed to do the show in March. We’d like to find a volunteer to handle publicity for the show. Another show meeting will be held sometime in January. MEMBERSHIP The bus trip is scheduled for 4/20 thanks to Tony Our Society has 83 paid members. Mininno. Hope everyone had a Happy New Years. We need a volunteer to host the potting party, and Kathie is looking for members to host open greenhouses. It's not too late to get a membership gift certificate for the coming year. Larry Thank you to Kathie Hile and Billie MacCarthy for making our Annual Holiday Party a HUGE SUCCESS! They did a great job making all of the arrangements! The food at Legends at Bennett Valley Golf Course was delicious! The orchids for the table decorations were beautiful. The gift exchange was fun, too! Thanks to Larry Mead for getting the new We would love to see how you grow. What month can you placque and the engraving done for the Marie host an open greenhouse? Please call Kathie at 585-1912 or 775-5560. Waskow Award Susan Page 3 SCOS January 2013 Newsletter ORCHID GENERA AND THEIR ABBREVIATIONS Many of us are confused as to what genus an orchid abbreviation refers, ie., "Brchnd." (Brachionidium) a natural genus, or "Droa." (Derosaara) a hybrid genus consisting of Aspasia x Brassia x Miltonia x Odontoglossum. There are approximately 1725 recognized orchid genera.The following link to First Rays, LLC provides a full list of genus names and their abbreviations: http://www.firstrays.com/orchid_genera.htm Brachionidium dodsoni Luer 1995 Photo courtesy of Eric Hunt. The plant photo is ensitu in Podocarpus National Park, Southern Ecuador. Found in southern Ecuador in deep moss on wet, steep road embankments at elevations of 1650 to 1850 meters as a miniature, cool growing terrestrial. Blooms in the spring on an erect, slender, single flowered, 1" long inflor-escence with a bract at the base and another below the middle that carries the single flower above the leaves. Derosaara Harvey 'Everglades' Photo courtesy of Everglades Orchids A SKILL SESSION at the January meeting, beginning at 6:45, will be provided by Marni Turkel on "HOW TO READ AN ORCHID TAG". Learn what names are capitalized and what names are not. What does it it mean when a name is in single quotes? What does the abbreviation var. or ssp. mean? Or those all caps letters with the / inbetween. Just come to the short skill session and get all the answers. Page 4 SCOS January 2013 Newsletter Weird & Wild: Spider, Butterfly Orchids on Behind-the-Scenes Tour Posted by Christine Dell'Amore of National Geographic News on September 28, 2012 Yesterday I escaped the city to explore the orchid-rich tropics—just a half-an-hour outside D.C. I took a behind-the-scenes to about 8,000 orchids used in education, exhibitions, and scientific research. Tom Mirenda shows a Dendrochilum magnum orchid. Photos by Christine Dell'Amore. Tom Mirenda, a Smithsonian orchid expert, first told our group a bit about orchids. For instance, most of the plants—found everywhere but Antarctica—are epiphytes, which means they grow on other plants, usually trees. (Wild orchids usually hang upside down—the flowers you might have seen in gardens or people’s homes are actually staked upright.) As we walked along the many aisles of plants, a light mist falling from above, Mirenda stopped to point out a few highlights, such as the pretty chocolate orchid, which had a sweet (but maybe not quite chocolatey) smell. I was surprised how different plants looked—some of them didn’t look like your, well, garden-variety orchid at all. The chocolate orchid smells sweet, sort of like chocolate! That’s because “that the way a flower looks has everything to do with its ecology”—ie.