Identification Please

[Townsville]

One of my backyard divisions has decided to flower for the first time. It came with no ID at all. It has never seen the inside of a house, greenhouse or shadehouse. The owner had it in a pot in a corner of his garden. I have it on my verandah (in dappled shade).

It is not very big - but I think it will grow to normal Cattleya size.

I suspect it might be Cattleya x venosa.

Would be grateful for some opinions.

[prisana]

Townsville, someone else was looking for an ID to a catt that looked a lot like yours. I don't remmember the thread, but kmarch said it might be a hybrid of C. bowringiana or something like that, if you look around in the newbie section you might find the pic..

[kmarch]

Well it's certainly a Cattleya or some kind. For those new to orchids or unfamiliar with orchid nomenclature, when you see a name expressed like this: Cattleya x venosa, e.g. a generic name (Cattleya) with an "x" before the species name, it refers to what we call a "natural hybrid" in otherwords a cross, occuring naturallyinthe wild, between two different species.

Cattleya x venosa is a naturally occuring cross between C. forbesii × C. harrisoniana. C. forbesii is a very "strong" plant in hybridizing. By that I mean it's characteristics come through strongly in its progeny. I dont see any forbesii at all in your pic, Towsnville. Note the tubular lip and petal stance (very clearly and strongly influenced by the forbseii parent) in C. x venosa.

Unfortunately this puts us back at square one. It's going to be quite difficult to ID an unknown hybrid.

[pikevi]

kmarch: Pardon my ignorance:can you please elaborate on "naturally occuring cross"?

What if the two,C. forbesii and C. harrisoniana are crossed 'in vitro'?

I am sorry, orchid naming convention is still very confusing to me!

[kmarch]

Yup, pikevi, I'll be happy to elaborate.

There are international standards of both scientific and horticultural nomenclature. They are really quite straightforward and logical. Unfortunately on this forum you're only getting a bit here and a small piece there so I can understand how it could appear confusing. There are booklets on nomenclature in general and for orchids specifically that you might want to check out. i believe there is one for orchids available through the AOS bookshop.

Hybridizing, as you probably know, is when we take two orchid species (or 2 hybrids or a hybrid and a species) and cross them. The result is a "hybrid." Hybridizing is typically done by humans creating what we call "artificial hybrids." Probably 99.99% of the hybrids in your collection are "artificial hybrids." But, occasionally, in nature two different species will cross without human intervention to produce what we call a "natural hybrid". Cattleya x venosa is one such example. Cattleya x guatemalensis is another (aurantiaca x skinneri).

If a human reproduces the cross of forbesii and harisoniana, the progeny bear the same name but the expression of that name differs. Sometimes the cross ("x") is left off and the species name capitalized like this: Cattleya Venosa. If you look in the RHS database, both Cattleya venosa and Cattleya Venosa appear, the record of the latter indicating it was registered in 1884. Since the capitalization of this second name typically indicates it is an artificial hybrid, if I saw this expression, I would guess that it was a human "remake" of the natural hybrid. Either is acceptable.

Is that helpful? i hope I am clarifying things and not further obscuring them. What would people think of my posting a brief tutorial in basic orchid nomenclature? Would that be useful?

[pikevi]

Thanks kmarch.

It sure did. I stumbled on the diffrence amongst 'Genus X species' vs. 'Genus species' vs. 'Genus Species' .

Your explanation was/is perfect.

Thank you again for taking the time to explain.

As for the tutorial , I am sure many would very much appreciate it, if it is not too much of a bother. I am quite familair with genetics(human) as well as Linnaeus system and I have a blank look on my face when I look into the orchid family

[Townsville]

The bloom is about 100mm across - and the plant is young. I am now thinking Laelia anceps???????

Townsville

[kmarch]

Townsville, I'm sure it's not Laelia anceps either, many things about the flower don't match and L. anceps sports a long, arching inflorescence. It is a starry flower so I suppose it could be a hybrid with anceps somewhere in its background, but I'm 99% sure it's not a species.

pikevi, I'll work on something basic on nomenclature and start start it as a new thread later this week.

cheers

[pikevi]

Thanks kmarch.

I hope it does not tax you much. It is much appreciated

[Townsville]

Many thanks Kmarch. I'll enter it in my catalogue as Cat. (unknown). I'm just thankful it showed its face.
Townsville

[kmarch]

Townsville, you should see my plant list. It's got all sorts of unknowns:

Phal unknown hybrid
Paph unknown hybrid (about half dozen of these)
Cybm unknown hybrid
etc., etc.

I try to avoid the unknowns but every once in a while I see one thats pretty enough to grow even if i don't know what it is. And so it goes...

[Townsville]

Sorry to bring this back again - but re Prisana's mail - a local grower visited today and immediately said "some sort of bowringiana". I'll stick to Cat Unknown (or Di's Orphans) but note Bowringiana in my comments column.

Thanks
Townsville

[kmarch]

Hi Townsville,

The colouration could very well have been contributed by a C. bowringiana parent but the form/structure of the flower is all wrong for it to be the species. I'm puzzled by how open and flattened out the lip is. It's more like somethignyou'd see in a Barkeria or somethign like that. I would really be interested in seeing its next bloom, to see if the lip comes out different or flat again.

-Kevin

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

Kevin, don't we have the possibility that an x guatamalensis and an x venosa are really second, third, etc generation of the natural crossing of these plants? The natural hybrids are usually found in the overlapping regions for each species, and therefore I assume that a modest population of interbreeding plants can occur.

[kmarch]

Hi Cynthia,

I'm not sure I'm completely following you.... Yes, natural hybrids are found in areas where the species parents overlap and, definitely yes, a x guatemalensis could be polinated from another x guatemalensis making 3rd, 4th, etc., etc generation x guatemalensis. A x guatemalensis could even be polinated form another C. skinneri (and I believe it would technically still be called x guatemalensis unlike in artificial hybridizing where this would be a different grex).... Am I missing a piece of the puzzle you're trying to put in place? I've had a long, intense orchid weekend (approximately 24hrs spent over the course of the weekend at the auctioning off of a major collection - more than 1200 plants) so maybe my brain is jsut a bit fried... My near future ==> Feel free to pound the point into my head if you wish. On the up side of things, my time at the auction was well spend and I picked up some spectacular plants.

[Townsville]

Back again

I have just seen Kevin's Barkeria barkeriola? from another post. Except that my plant has only one flower it looks exactly the same - including the very vivid lip blotch. Townsville

[kmarch]

Hi Townsville,

Yes I see the similarity in colour between your plant and Barkeria barkeriola however there are some significant differences too. First of all notice the substantial difference in the plant habit of your plant and Barkeria. Barkeria have small slender canes with leaves along the cane's length. Your plant has a pronounced pseudobulb with a singly thick leaf at the top. Also look at the lip and column. The Barkeria column is attached to the lip along the length of the column. Your plant has a column that is detached from the lip. Also a Barkeria has, on its lip, what we call "keels." Keels are fleshy ridge-like structures that run down (in this case) the centre of the lip. Your flower has no keels. It's safe to say your flower isn't a Barkeria.

I did a quick search of the RHS database and found a few Cattkerias listed (Cattleya x Barkeria), but there's one big hitch: Cattkerias are quite rare and unusual. It's very unlikely an untagged backyard division would turn out to be a Barkeria intergeneric.

I still think your best bet is some C. bowringiana hybrid.

[Townsville]

Thanks Kmarch

Oh well - I may be wrong most of the time - but it is very educational.

[kmarch]

Hi Townsville,

I hope you don't think I'm out to shoot down every possibility you put forth. That's not my intention. On the contrary I've been thinking of this as a mystery to be solved. Every suspect investigated and eliminated gets us closer to the perpetrator.

And you're right, it is educational. I had a tagless Stanhopea that bloomed and I learned more about Stanhopeas trying to identify that one plant than I ever would have by just deciding to study Stanhopeas. And I never did identify it.

Cheers.