Thursday, October 28, 2010

Pretty picture: Laeliocattleya Fire Dance 'Patricia'


I really like this one. Possibly it's the color. Most of the photos from Google show flowers that are more orange and less red than this, but it wouldn't be the first time a particular orchid specimen was different from the way the variety normally looks, due to differences in care or whatever. And the lighting was, as I've noted before, bad that day.

I had this identified as Rhynchosophrocattleya Firedance 'Patricia' originally, and that's still what the file name says, but looking around for information on it, I got hits for Lc. Fire Dance 'Patricia' instead. A lot of the orchids at the show were mislabeled in subtle ways (letters transposed, things spelled as two words instead of one or vice-versa, obsolete names), so this is presumably an example of that, but I don't know which name is wrong in this case. Doesn't really matter, though. It's a pretty flower. Makes me happy to look at it. That's good enough.


4 comments:

Steve Asbell said...

It makes me happy to look at it too! I'm a big fan of anything in that alliance, especially one with orange, red, coral, whatever it is, flowers!

Paul said...

Lc was its earlier name. Many orchid hobbyists, myself included, have given up trying to keep up with all the name changes the taxonomists are continually throwing out there as of late. The Cattleya alliance in particular has been the 'victim' of continuous revisions (sometimes back to the old names) over the last year or two.

huiray said...

If you are interested, you can look up the current name for orchid hybrids at the RHS site - where you can find either parentage of a grex or the cross from two parents. It is often best to leave out the genus name(s) when doing a search as that allows for the nomenclature muckups that Paul refers to. You then look through the list of hits (if more than one) for what you are looking for - the grex names do not change, the genus names may have changed etc.
http://apps.rhs.org.uk/horticulturaldatabase/orchidregister/orchidregister.asp

huiray said...

The current (official) name for this grex is Cattlianthe Fire Dance. http://apps.rhs.org.uk/horticulturaldatabase/orchidregister/orchiddetails.asp?ID=49468

Horticulturally, many orchid hobbyists (including myself), sellers and growers still think of it and refer to it as Lc Fire Dance. As far as I'm concerned it will mentally remain as Lc Fire Dance until the id**ts at Kew make up their minds and the taxonomists finish duking it out.