At the location of Phal. violacea

And here is some information and impressions from a time long gone. The text and the photos of the location are by Rolf HERRMANN:

At the end of the 1970s, Michael OOI received information that the last large natural habitat of Phal.violacea, about 40 km south of Ipoh (Malaysia) and west of Kampong Baharn Timah, was to be destroyed. The floodplain of the small tributaries of the Perak River was to be drained because the land was needed for oil palm plantations.

After laborious negotiations with the provincial governor, Michael was given permission to collect the orchid and bring it to his nursery. In the following months, around 8,000 Phal. violaceas were relocated.

The condition was that these plants were to be artificially propagated. This resulted in one of the largest violacea breeding operations in the 1980s. To this day, Michael still breeds Phal. violaceas from this "natural" line.

I had the opportunity to accompany Michael OOi on a collecting tour - believe me, vacation looks different.

We had to wade through water of varying depths for hours until we reached the location.

A unique experience - Phal. violacea in its natural habitat - today it can no longer be found in Malaysia.

After countless plants were collected, they had to be brought to the nursery, cleaned out and re-tied.

In the 1980s, the company Ooi also offered regrown plants in a catalogue:

In the following years, Phal. violacea were regularly offered as offspring all over the world:

Through a selection of the best, the colors became more and more intense over the years. However, Phal. bellina (formerly Phal. violacea "Borneo") and Phal. violacea "Sumatra" were also crossed again and again.

But albino variants of Phal. violacea were also propagated: