{"id":412,"date":"2009-02-24T20:29:29","date_gmt":"2009-02-25T04:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/24\/malaxis\/"},"modified":"2009-11-12T23:00:49","modified_gmt":"2009-11-13T07:00:49","slug":"malaxis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/24\/malaxis\/","title":{"rendered":"Malaxis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jewel orchids are a fascinating group of plants that are grown for their beautiful foliage. Usually, mention of their colorful leaves includes a statement that the flowers are uninteresting. I always find that an amusing statement, but maybe I&#8217;m biased as an orchid geek that all orchids are interesting. I do believe that this mini jewel orchid, a Malaxis, proves my point. Its flowers look more like a tiny yellow bug than an orchid. The little blooms are less than 1\/4 inch (6 mm) wide, and open in succession along a lengthening flower spike. The first picture shows the flower spike with unopened buds.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Malaxis flower spike\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/malaxis_1_640px.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/malaxis_1_640px.thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"Malaxis flower spike\" \/><\/a><a title=\"Malaxis flowers and flower spike\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/malaxis_2_640px.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/malaxis_2_640px.thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"Malaxis flowers and flower spike\" \/><\/a><a title=\"Malaxis flowers\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/malaxis_3_640px.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/malaxis_3_640px.thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"Malaxis flowers\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I bought this unusual orchid a couple years ago, and set it in a shady spot. It grew well for a few months, and then started dropping its leaves. Soon it was down to a single leaf, and I was ready to sacrifice it to the compost. In a last-ditch attempt to save it, I placed it in my terrarium, which has constant <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/care\/details\/humidity.html\">high humidity<\/a>. Instantly it perked up, and over the next few months it grew more leaves. Finally it&#8217;s rebounded well enough to bloom. Moral of the story: high humidity is essential for this orchid, since its thin leaves dry out quickly.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Malaxis flowers\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/malaxis_4_640px.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/malaxis_4_640px.thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"Malaxis flowers\" \/><\/a><a title=\"Malaxis flower\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/malaxis_5_640px.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/malaxis_5_640px.thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"Malaxis flower\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The pictures below show the beautiful iridescent bronze leaves and bright pink stem that make this a gorgeous plant, even when it&#8217;s not in bloom. I&#8217;m certainly not denying that the plant is beautiful, but I don&#8217;t think that makes the flowers any less interesting.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Malaxis flower spike and leaves\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/malaxis_6_640px.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/malaxis_6_640px.thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"Malaxis flower spike and leaves\" \/><\/a><a title=\"Malaxis leaves and stem\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/malaxis_7_640px.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/malaxis_7_640px.thumbnail.jpg\" alt=\"Malaxis leaves and stem\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jewel orchids are a fascinating group of plants that are grown for their beautiful foliage. Usually, mention of their colorful leaves includes a statement that the flowers are uninteresting. I always find that an amusing statement, but maybe I&#8217;m biased as an orchid geek that all orchids are interesting. I do believe that this mini [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intermediate-growers","category-mini-orchids","category-photos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1232,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412\/revisions\/1232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.aboutorchids.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}