Beallara (syn Aliceara) Tropic Tom ‘Honker’

Honker is one of the three cultivars of Beallara (syn Aliceara) Tropic Tom that were produced commercially.  Each cultivar has it’s own strengths and weaknesses, for Honker it wins in the full flower and the best colour but suffers a bit in flower count and single spike habit.  Where as the other two cultivars (Pale Face and Kinky) tend to have bland flower colour during the warmer months, only achieving their best colours during the cooler months, Honker just has that nice dark rich flower colour year round.

The Tropic Tom range is classed in Beallara under the original botanical classifications, with all plants sold from January 2016 going out with Beallara labels.  Recent botanical reclassification’s have it moved to Aliceara, so you will find it under both intergeneric names on my website.  Soon another botanist will reclassify them back to the original genera, it’s happen in the past and is still happening regularly in the botanical world.  Enough said about botanists!

Honker forms a relatively compact plant with squat round bulbs.  On rare occasions it’ll send up two spikes from a growth, but most likely only one spike per growth.  Flower count varies from 6 to 10 flowers per spike, with the average mature or substantial plant having 8 to 9 flowers.  It doesn’t have a flowering season, just flowering randomly throughout the year regardless of weather.  The newly opened flowers are bronze/yellow/pink/purple colouration (see photo that shows new and older flowers on the spike), quickly changing to their darker purple/pink within a few days.  The bronze/yellow colouration is more pronounced in the warmer months.  Older flowers change to a lighter colouration as you can see in the photos.

Overall it suffers from the light freckling (little black spots) that can show up on the Tropic Tom range foliage, which is usually more prominent on the older foliage.  This is usually caused by low humidity and high temperatures affecting the leaf stomata and has no effect on the plant health.  As with all Oncidium Intergenerics it doesn’t like over potting, so keep it tight in the pot and only pot up when absolutely necessary.  The plant in the photos is still in the same 150mm squat pot 7 months and many flower spikes later.