Where to Find Photos of Phalaenopsis Orchids with Information

If you’ve ever read about a particular orchid species and wanted to see a photo, you could always type it into a search engine like Yahoo or Google or Bing and then click on the word “images”. But that won’t always tell you much else about the orchid.  Instead, you could try going to Jay’s Internet Orchid Species Photo Encyclopedia.  It’s a mouthful, but it’s pretty easy to type Orchid Species.com into your web browser.

Not only will you find lovely orchid photos, but information like if it has a fragrance, the plant’s light and temperature preferences, and blooming seasons – all depicted with icons. Taxonomic Organization of Species, includes all varieties and formas, subspecies etc. listed under the parent species. Not all species are listed because it’s a photo encyclopedia, not an orchid list of all plant names, so if there’s no photo, there’s no listing.

As of July 2010, the encyclopedia includes 11,714 species in 782 genera. The page for Ph – Pi, which would be where we’d find our favorites – Phalaenopsis orchids – starts with Phaedrosanthus Neck. 1903 and ends with Pittierella Schltr. 1906.

The Phals listed include all of the about 60 species from Phalaenopsis amabilis to Phalaenopsis zebrine. Phal. amabilis has a number of subspecies listed, as do Phal. schilleriana -- which is featured in the photo at the top of the Ph – Pi page.

Let’s take a look at the listing for the Phalaenopsis amabilis.  Among many other tidbits, we learn that this orchid’s common name is “The Lovely Phalaenopsis” and that it’s the national Flower of Indonesia. It includes a detailed description, a list of synonyms and references, and links to additional photos.

But, if you’d rather see what all the Phalaenopsis orchid species look like at once, check out this site.