Plant shopping online can be both exciting and stressful. The thrill of locating a Wishlist Plant can quickly turn to nervous anxiety, as I’m sure most plant parents can attest to after they click the “Purchase” button. Will my plants arrive alive and healthy? How much rehabbing will I need to do? Did I purchase from a reputable and honest vendor? What if it gets lost in the mail? Confiscated by Customs? Run over by a delivery truck?
Ok, ok, so the last one might be a bit overly dramatic (although…you’ll never know). While there’s not much that can be done once your plant purchase gets handed over to the courier service, you can at least ease some of your anxiety by ensuring you make your purchase from good vendors. Every so often in my “Plant Haul” posts, I will provide my opinion of the vendor that I make my purchases from.
In this blog post, I will be reviewing my purchase from Black Jungle Terrarium Supply. They specialize in providing exotic terrarium and vivarium plants, natural decor and poison dart frogs to their Indoor Jungle-obsessed customers. If you live in the United States, this is definitely a vendor that should be on your shopping list!
If you’ve read my blogpost reviewing plant purchases that I’ve made on Amazon, you would have seen that I have recently begun collecting jewel orchids. Like a lot of other plants, I have found them to be fascinating and gorgeous. Jewel orchids are best known for their foliage rather than their flowers, which are usually small, white and somewhat inconspicuous compared to their flashier cousins like Phalaenopsis and Cattleyas. Their foliage can be quite eye-catching; the surfaces of their leaves tend to be both velutinous (velvety) and lined with shimmery, iridescent veins. It’s like finding veins of glittering gold in a matrix of dark rock.
Black Jungle is one of the few places in the United States that sells a good variety of different jewel orchid species for a (relatively) affordable price. I can’t say I’ve had much luck finding other sources in regards to the sheer number of hybrids and species that they offer. Due to their popularity, the jewel orchid listings on their website are almost always labeled as “Sold Out”, so you have to request an email notification if you’re looking to purchase any at some point in the future. The plants they offer are all younger seedlings growing in two-inch pots and hardened off. The website makes it clear that growing up your plants to maturity is your responsibility, so make sure you are ready to take them on.
Placing the order on Black Jungle’s website is extremely easy. The turnaround time for shipment can be up to a week, or as otherwise specified on their website. I have found them to be extremely reliable so I am not concerned about a slightly longer waiting period. Once the plants are shipped, they arrive in a couple of days and are always well-packaged. So far, all of the jewel orchids I have received are potted in a chunky soil mix, not sphagnum moss. That’s a win for me, because I don’t do well at all with jewel orchids in sphagnum moss, and I have no idea why. It just doesn’t work for me.
But that’s enough on the ordering and shipping details. Let’s not waste any more time and get back to what you Plant Peeps really want to look at—the jewel orchids that I’ve purchased!
Dossinochilus “Turtle Back”
Of the jewel orchids in this lineup, Dossinochilus “Turtle Back” is my favorite. It’s not hard to wonder why when you take a gander at the glittering, iridescent veins and the bronze blush to the dark green leaves. If you’re thinking “you know, this kind of looks like Dossinia marmorata” then you’re not wrong. This plant is a hybrid of Dossinia marmorata and an Anoectochilus species.
While the photo makes it look like a rosette growing right on top of the soil, there is actually about two inches of bare stem that you can’t see. It looks kind of like a palm tree with broad leaves and a skinny trunk. I’m curious to see if it decides to stay upright or start to flatten out and crawl across the substrate instead.
Anoectodes “Charlotte’s Web”
Anoectodes “Charlotte’s Web” is a hybrid between Anoectochilus brevilabris and Macodes petola. Of the jewel orchids I received, this one has the most compact growth habit, and appears to be forming a nice, dense rosette close to the surface of the soil. I’m not sure if it will stay this way but I hope it will. I’m a sucker for a good rosette form.
Anoectochilus reinwardtii
Anoectochilus reinwardtii is a stunning jewel orchid with fiery copper veins. It reminds me of glowing lava in the rifts and fissures of a volcano. This young plant arrived quite a bit lankier than its companions, and I’m curious about its mature growth pattern. A lot of jewel orchids grow tall and then flop over to spread horizontally on the ground, and I’m wondering if that’s what this plant is trying to do. I hope this jewel orchid maintains the dense network of red venation on its leaves that we see here. Can you imagine how incredible it would look on a mature specimen plant?
Dossisia Dominyi “Judy”
Dossisia Dominyi “Judy” is a hybrid between Dossinia marmorata var. dayii and Ludisia discolor. I’ve been doing some research and I’m not entirely sure what the difference is between this “Judy” form and the original Dossisia Dominyi form below. The only thing I’ve noticed in the pictures I have seen online is that the “Judy” hybrid has a broader, more prominent light-colored vein pattern running down the central midrib of each leaf. In some photos, it becomes a very thick, light streak running right down the middle, like it was smeared with paint. The leaf venation of “Judy” does look a lot bolder in comparison to the original Dossisia Dominyi below.
Dossisia Dominyi
The original Dossisia Dominyi is still the same hybrid of of Dossinia marmorata var. dayii and Ludisia discolor. However, unlike the Dossisia Dominyi “Judy” form, it seems to lack the broad stripe of lighter venation running down the midrib of each leaf. The images that I’ve found online seem to indicate that Dossisia Dominyi has a denser, more uniform vein pattern almost like Macodes petola.
I hope you enjoyed this little jewel orchid plant haul and review! It’s surprisingly hard to find much information about these plants, and I can only attribute that to the fact that they are not generally widespread in cultivation. I’m hoping that I can keep all of these babies alive and grow them out to maturity, and then be able to give all of you Plant Peeps another tour of my collection! Otherwise, I highly-recommend Black Jungle Terrarium Supply as a place to get some gorgeous and rare jewel orchids.
Always Keep Growing,
Heather (a.k.a. The Botanical Chick)
