The April issue of ORCHIDS Magazine (the bulletin of the American Orchid Society) brought some exciting award acknowledgements for two talented growers on Vancouver Island.
Joe Chow from the Victoria Orchid Society received the prestigious CARLYLE A. LUER AWARD. The following is an excerpt from ORCHIDS Magazine (Volume 88 (4) April 2019).
“Each year, the AOS Board of Trustees, upon the recommendations of the Judging committee, bestows 21 special annual awards meant to recognize the best orchids awarded in the previous calendar year. These donor-endowed awards are named for people who have contributed greatly to the knowledge, education, culture and hybridization of orchids. The exhibitors whose orchids were chosen for these awards are a second group of special people. They receive a small monetary award or a trophy, a signed certificate and framed photograph of the winning orchid. Finally, all this would not be possible without the beautiful photographs taken of the awards at the time of initial judging by our skilled photographers.” (1)
“The Carlyle A. Luer Awards is given to the grower of the most outstanding member of the pleurothallidinae.
Masdevallia Minaret ‘Burred Inlet’ CCM/AOS (calocodon × ignea) (85) #20174354; Exhibitor, Joe Chow; photographer, Judith Hingham; Western Canada Judging Center, monthly judging, Richmond, British Columbia, 8/12/17. This beautiful, uniformly flowered plant had 135 pink, magenta-striped “cheery” flowers.
Carlyle Luer is a botanist and physician who, upon his retirement as a physician, took up the study and illustration of orchids in 1975. He is currently in his 90s. His taxonomic work has inspired the explosive interest in pleurothallids in recent years.
Joe Chow has been growing orchids for 25 years as a hobby. He lives near the southern tip of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Summers are cool and a perfect place to grow his masdevallias outside from April to October.” (1)
