Pretty picture: Cattlianthe Jewel Box 'Orange'

And here's the last orchid from the 2015 show: t'll get you prepared for the crappy 2016 photos. (The good news is that, although they're not great photos in general, a respectable number of them cleaned up well, and a few actually managed to be good pictures despite everything. Also, there will be a lot of them: 69 posts to cram into 52 weeks, the most I've used since the 2012 show. So what they lack in quality is maybe partly made up for by quantity, and they'll be coming at you faster than they did in 2015.)¹

While the flowers on Cattlianthe Jewel Box 'Orange' did have a crazy, glow-in-the-dark sort of feel in person, my camera doesn't capture it well, plus it looks like I went a bit too far with the saturation adjustment.

Not a lot to say about this otherwise, aside from noting that Guarianthe aurantiaca sure is popular for breeding.

Cattlianthe Jewel Box 'Orange' = Guarianthe aurantiaca x Cattleya x Anzac (1921) (Ref.)

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¹ In retrospect, I should have edited the 2016 photos and then scheduled the posts, which would have given me the option to reject photos that weren't working out well. That I didn't do this obvious thing suggests that maybe the time pressure was getting to me.

Pretty picture: Phalaenopsis Chiada Francis 'Picotee'

I have now been to the 2016 orchid show. I have good news and bad news.

The good news is that I enjoyed myself more than I usually do. We've been attending the shows long enough (since 2010) that I know more or less how to get in, get the photos, and get back out again with minimal trouble. Nobody from the Illowa Orchid Society ambushed me to chastise me for my complaints about the tags on the plants, and there were, as usual, a few plants that really impressed me. Maybe even more than usual.

The bad news is that it was overcast all day,¹ so the light was less than ideal for photos, and as a result, the photo quality suffered. I haven't edited any of the photos yet, so it's possible that I'll still be able to turn them into decent shots, but the initial impression after uploading them was pretty bad.

Also this year, I tried for the first time to get whole-plant photos of all the plants, instead of just the flowers, on the grounds that there are probably serious orchid people in the audience who are as interested in the plants as they are in the flowers. However, those were almost uniformly terrible. I mean, again, I may be able to edit some of those into something usable, but between the crappy lighting and the way the plants were displayed, I don't expect to post most of them, so it was mostly wasted effort. I recognize that the show probably can't use as much of the Wallace's Garden Center space as it would like, and that they don't have infinite amounts of money to work with either, but every year I get irked by the way that certain blooms and plants are impossible to photograph without also getting a bunch of garbage (show ribbons, name tags, other orchids, non-orchid plants that get thrown in for decorative purposes, garden center displays, spectator butts, etc.) in the photo as well.²

My point being, don't get your hopes up for the next year of orchid photos. Some of them still turned out fine, but I expect the overall quality is going to be lower than those from the 2015 show. Nothing I could do about it: I don't control the weather.³ Sorry.

I still have to get the photos edited and uploaded, names checked, posts scheduled, ancestries checked out, notes made, and previous appearances looked up: I hope that will be finished by the time you see this, but I kind of doubt it.

Meanwhile, we do still have an orchid from 2015 to look at.

I don't remember it being this dark of a yellow in person, say my notes from five days after the 2015 show. I could only find a couple other photos of it on-line, and they both indicate a lighter, less orangey yellow. (Only one photo is linkable, alas.) This is probably a photo-editing failure: the background looks a little redder than it ought to as well.

I'm impressed with these flowers to the degree that they're both an unusual color and an unusual pattern, but even at the show, I was kind of ennh about this one.

Phalaenopsis Chiada Francis 'Picotee' = Phalaenopsis I-Hsin Sunflower x Phalaenopsis Taisuco Firebird (Ref.)

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¹ On the way there, we occasionally saw some light sprinkles of rain or snow, but nothing too serious, and then out of nowhere there was this amazing patch of incredibly dense, wet, clumpy snow. The snow didn't accumulate; it was too warm for that. But there was enough snow in the air to limit visibility substantially, and it was bizarre and amazing. And then after about 3 minutes, it stopped entirely, and it was just a normal overcast spring day again. March!
² Also certain exhibitors use backgrounds for their displays that make it harder to make out the outlines of plants: there's a screen made of sticks that shows up every year to drive me crazy, as well as a shoji screen which is my personal photographic nemesis. (It doesn't always cause the photo to turn out poorly, but considering how much other clutter is present in the displays, I feel like it shouldn't be too much to ask for the background to be a single, unpatterned, neutral color. That said, I realize that they're not putting the show on for me, and I should just do the best with the backgrounds I'm given and accept that they're not all going to work out perfectly. Which is what I've been doing.)
³ (Yet.)

Pretty picture: Bulbophyllum Elizabeth Ann 'Buckleberry'

We just did a Bulbophyllum, I know, but this one looks so different I feel like it shouldn't count as a repeat.

Bulbophyllum Elizabeth Ann 'Buckleberry' = Bulbophyllum longissimum x Bulbophyllum rothschildianum (Ref.)

To put it in misleadingly oversimplified terms, it looks sort of like B. longissimum is long but light-colored, and B. rothschildianum is stumpy but colorful, and Elizabeth Ann 'Buckleberry' got the length from one parent and the color from the other.

When I looked into the ancestry, I was surprised to learn that B. putidum (previously, in 2014) wasn't in the mix somewhere, because they seem pretty similar in color. Apparently not, though. It did get me wondering how often orchid breeders wind up making hybrids that more or less duplicate a natural species. Surely that's happened at least once, right?

Pretty picture: Paphiopedilum Mr Wonderful

We've seen a Mr Wonderful before, in 2013; this one's duller and not as spotty as that one.

For comparison purposes, here's 2013's specimen:

The ancestry of this particular hybrid, as I reported it in 2013, is:

Paphiopedilum Mr. Wonderful = P. Knock Knock x P. Gloriosum

and the ancestry I found for the 2015 version is

Paphiopedilum Mr Wonderful = P. Anhinga x P. Friedrich von Hayek

Which are obviously not the same. Ugh, you're thinking, another Mr. Subjunctive tirade about mislabeled plants, I bet there's something interesting on TV right now I could be watching instead of reading this. But no!

(I mean, that's probably right, about the TV. But there is a twist in this story!)

The twist is: either ancestry, or both ancestries, is potentially correct! The International Orchid Registry has a listing for a Paphiopedilum Mister Wonderful, Knock Knock x Gloriosum, 1996, and a listing for Paphiopedilum Mr Wonderful, Anhinga x Freidrich von Hayek, 2010.

So which one is this? Which one was the one from 2013?

[shrug]

I don't think I'll ever know. Search engines return few or no results for "Paphiopedilum 'Mister Wonderful,'" but lots of results for "Paphiopedilum 'Mr Wonderful,'" and the pictures that come up in both cases look like the 2013 picture. But, search engines can't necessarily be trusted to look for what you actually type anymore, even with quote marks, and I didn't bother to click on all the pages to see whether they had it as "Mr" or "Mister." It probably wouldn't matter either way: I sure as hell don't trust orchid sellers and random Flickr photographers to know that "Mister Wonderful" isn't the same thing as "Mr Wonderful,"¹ or to refrain from abbreviating out of laziness.

So I wind up wanting to write sternly-worded letters to the International Orchid Registry people about what in the hell were they thinking, approving two greges with (for all practical purposes) the same name. I probably won't, of course. And they wouldn't listen if I did. But if someone important in the IOR hierarchy happens to be reading: maybe watch out for this in the future?² Or at least bring it up at the next meeting and see what everybody else says?

Here to play us out of the post is Mr. Mister, with the video for "Broken Wings," because when else could Mr. Mister ever be so appropriate? Take what is wrong and make it right, International Orchid Registry.


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¹ I'm not even sure how I found out that Mr != Mister. And I was there when it happened, presumably.
² Also keep an eye out for Doctor/Dr., Saint/St., and Mount/Mt. pairs while you're at it. Or maybe just disallow abbreviations entirely? Kinda surprised that hasn't happened already, frankly.

Pretty picture: Bulbophyllum lobbii 'Sonoma Gold'

This one is much nicer than the previous Bulbophyllum lobbii (2013, 'Kathy's Gold'); I was particularly surprised at the size of the flowers.

I mean, the flowers weren't quite large enough to stretch across my hand, but it was close. I don't think I've ever seen a Bulbophyllum that big before.

Of course, the plant was pretty substantial, too. Maybe 'Sonoma Gold' is just an all-around giant?

Pretty picture: Calanthe rosea

Okay, well. This one's interesting insofar as it's a new genus for the blog. And it's an actual genus, too, not a mere nothogenus.

I kind of don't like it, though. It's not that it's doing anything wrong, but it reminds me of something we sold at the ex-job as an annual. I want to say Nemesia?¹ Whatever it was, it didn't like our greenhouse so much, and they didn't do well, and I didn't know why. This orchid looks just enough like whatever it was that just looking at it makes me mildly anxious and stressed out.²

My photo differs from a lot of the photos of Calanthe rosea on-line; it seems the flower petals are usually a bit flatter, and more elongated (e.g. one, two, three). I think the ID is still correct, because other sources have the flowers looking more like my photo, but they apparently don't always look like this. Maybe don't even usually look like this.

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¹ Image search was inconclusive. It's been at least seven years now; the memory has faded a bit. Nemesia is at least plausible.
² I haven't had to work with poinsettias in seven years now, but I honestly still get a little queasy if enough of them are around.

Pretty picture: Paphiopedilum liemianum

This one made me a little happy, then a little angry, then a little happy again.

A little happy, because it's pleasant enough to look at. I mean, it's not my favorite or anything, and I wouldn't call it pretty, but it's fine.

And then a little bit angry, because it was tagged "Paph lehmanii." That plant doesn't seem to exist, though there is a Pescatoria lehmannii. Which looks nothing like a Paphiopedilum, of course. (Though Pescatoria lehmannii is remarkably pretty; check it out.) Somehow or another, I managed to locate some photos of Paphiopedilum liemianum, which match up, so that's my guess for the ID here.

But then happy again, because I realized that it looked a lot like a NOID orchid from the 2012 show, so if I'm correct about the ID for this plant, then I've also probably identified that one. And it always feels good to resolve a long-standing problem like that, even one that's completely inconsequential.

The whole experience averages out, emotionally, to mildly-annoyed-but-I'll-get-over-it-shortly.

Pretty picture: Jackfowlieara Appleblossom

I like this one a lot too, though it isn't new: it's been on PATSP before, as Collierara Apple Blossom, in 2010.

It also has connections to a few other orchids you've seen before: it's the pollen parent of 2013's Jackfowlieara Lindiwe, and the offspring of Caulaelia Snowflake, also a favorite of mine, which we've seen in 2013 and 2014.

I like Appleblossom's shape a lot. It's not that it's so terribly different from other Cattleya-type orchids so much as the labellum has exactly the right amount of ruffliness, and the other sepals are pointed just the right amount. This may or may not be correct according to orchid-judging rules,¹ but I'm a rebel and stuff. The color doesn't hurt either. I like pink and yellow together. Why not?

Jackfowlieara Appleblossom = Caulaelia Snowflake x Rhyncattleanthe Orange Nuggett² (Ref.)

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¹ Are there general rules for judging broad categories like "Cattleya Alliance," where a certain petal angle or lip ruffle is desirable but others aren't? (I mean, I know that orchid breeders see certain qualities as more desirable than others, so is it the same in shows?) Is every Jackfowlieara Appleblossom judged only against other Jackfowlieara Appleblossoms? Or something in between? I have no experience with orchid-show judging and barely even pay attention to the ribbons at the show (all the plants seem to get ribbons; it barely registers with me what color any of the ribbons are unless I happen to get one in the frame of a photo, and even then I don't notice them until after I get home and I'm looking through the pictures), so I have no idea how any of this works. What are they even getting judged on? Is it all just political, and you get ribbons if people like you personally? Are there superdelegates?
² "Nuggett" is apparently not a misspelling; several cvv. in the orchid registry contain it, mostly Rhyncattleanthes. I imagine either they're all named after the same person, or they're all produced by the same person. Or both. I didn't check.

Pretty picture: Phalaenopsis Kaoda Twinkle 'Dusty's Midnight'

I loved this one so much. The photo disappointed me (especially the out of focus and overexposed flower in the top left), but it was gorgeous in person. Plus there's sort of a white-tie tuxedo thing happening with the labellum.

The closest I got to a jaw-drop moment from the 2015 orchid show was the black Paphiopedilum (Black Cherry x sukhakulii) I showed you last June, but I also really liked the Papilionanda Erika Cizek Dann from October, and this Phalaenopsis. I don't know whether it means anything that my favorite orchids from the show were all much darker than the typical varieties. Maybe I was just in a dark purple mood that day. Either way, this is one of the few Phalaenopsis varieties I've seen that I actually covet.

Phalaenopsis Kaoda Twinkle 'Dusty's Midnight' = Phalaenopsis schilleriana x Phalaenopsis Malvarosa Valentine Pearl (Ref.)

Phal. schilleriana is pretty consistently lavender/pink in photo search results (e.g.); Phal. Malvarosa Valentine Pearl doesn't seem to show up in searches (you get results, but they're all pictures of Phal. Kaoda Twinkle).

Pretty picture: Dendrobium bracteosum f. alba

I hadn't meant to stick two Dendrobiums so close together (last one was only 12 days ago), but they look so different from one another that I feel like it shouldn't count.

The usual form of Den. bracteosum is apparently lavender to pink; some of the more photos that emerge from an image search (e.g.) remind me a bit of crocus, especially the images that lean more to the lavender side of things. I'm less impressed with the white form, but it's possible that that's due to my terrible photo, rather than the plant's inherent inferiority.

Dendrobium bracteosum has a ridiculously long list of synonyms, according to Wikipedia, and I'm not sure what the hell was happening: after being described once in 1886 and christened D. bracteosum, it appears to have been re-named every few years (1894, 1899, 1901, 1910, 1912, 1922, 1923), then in 1983 somebody got all excited and named it four times. Since the same surname is appended to all four of the 1983 botanical names, and that person placed all four in the same genus (Pedilonum), I'm guessing that somebody just really, really wanted to create a new genus from within Dendrobium, but it doesn't appear to have worked; all Pedilonums are still officially Dendrobium as far as I can tell. Curious about why it got so many names, so far apart from one another, but for all I know, that could just be how plant taxonomy worked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Pretty picture: Phragmipedium Sorcerer's Apprentice

We've seen a flower by this name before (2012), but the colors were different then (orange-red in 2012, brown-yellow in 2015), and I don't think the difference can be explained by the lighting or the camera or whatever. I mean, the shapes are different too.

The available online photos suggest that this year's pictures are closer to what the actual registered hybrid looks like than 2012's were. It would then follow that the 2012 pictures were misidentified by me, the exhibitor, or the seller. So what was I taking pictures of in 2012? I suppose we'll never know. (UPDATE: Read the comments. Nycguy knows.)

Anyway. Had some trouble photographing this; the petals are narrow, which makes it difficult to convince the camera's autofocus to pay attention to them. But I got some passable shots anyway, obviously, and it seems like a nice enough flower.

Phragmipedium Sorcerer's Apprentice = Phragmipedium longifolium x Phragmipedium sargentianum (Ref.)

Pretty picture: Dendrobium anosmum 'Superbum'

This looks very pretty, but it seems like the growth habit would make it awkward to grow. I mean, that has to take up quite a bit of space in a greenhouse or whatever, right? Compared to an upright-growing plant of equal mass?

That's the sort of question I could ask the Illowa people about at the orchid show, if I hadn't already spent so much time complaining about the backgrounds and proofreading. But I have, so I'm a little afraid of them.¹ (This one's sign read "anosum" instead of "anosmum." They're just fucking with me now, right?)

'Superbum' turns out to be Latin (Google Translate renders it as "proud," in English, which may or may not be accurate²), but when I'm feeling especially playful or British or something, I like to read and pronounce it as a synonym for "phenomenal backside."

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¹ (As you probably already know, orchid fanciers can be very menacing.)
² I'm never quite sure how seriously to take Google Translate results.

Pretty picture: Phalaenopsis I-Hsin Venus

I-Hsin Venus is another of the really pretty phals from the 2015 show.

I got curious about all the "I-Hsin" phals (I've only blogged about our good friend I-Hsin Balloon and I-Hsin Black Jack, but the International Orchid Register site lists another 380 Phalaenopsis hybrids, from I-Hsin Abby to I-Hsin Zoo.

The registrant name for some of these, including I-Hsin Venus, is "I-Hsin Biotech," and for the others it's "W. C. Chien." As best as I can determine from their website, I-Hsin Biotech started out as one guy doing some amateur Phalaenopsis breeding in Taiwan and has turned into an international family-owned phal-production juggernaut, with facilities in Taiwan and the U.S.

So if the I-Hsin plants are amazing, well, they damn well should be: they have 70,000 m² (750,000 square feet) of greenhouse space for mass production of their plants, and an additional tenth of that amount set aside for flasks. If I had 6300 times more growing space devoted to Anthurium seedlings, I'd probably come up with some pretty cool Anthuriums, too.^{1, 2} (Also I imagine I'd spend quite a bit more time watering.)

And I-Hsin turns out not even to be unusual, in the Phalaenopsis world. There's another company whose phals show up frequently at the orchid show, OX Orchid Farm,³ who are also based in Taiwan and the U.S. No doubt if I looked long enough, I could find half a dozen more enormous Taiwanese Phalaenopsis companies.

I'm not crazy about the implication. I mean, in theory, there's still nothing stopping an amateur from catching a lucky break and producing an amazing seedling on their own, using a flasking service or whatever. But if you had your own amazing registered hybrid, really all you could do with it would be to sell it to one of the big companies, right? I mean, you can't really do tissue-culture at home,⁴ and if you can't mass-produce your plants, you can't mass-sell them either.

Not sure there's anything to be done about this really. Capitalism's gonna capital. But I don't like it.

Even if it does result in some pretty amazing plants.

Phalaenopsis I-Hsin Venus = Phalaenopsis Dragon's Gold x Phalaenopsis I-Hsin Viola Tris (Ref.)

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¹ I mean, not that some of my Anthurium seedlings aren't still cool. They're just maybe not this cool.
² I have approximately 120 square feet (11 m²) of shelf space devoted to Anthuriums at the moment, including seedlings, parent plants, and germination containers. The Schlumbergeras get about 54 square feet (5 m²).
³ OX Orchid Farm hybrids: OX Spot Queen 'OX1460,' OX Prince 'OX1480,' OX Golden Apple, OX Little Moon, and OX Firebird 'OX1495'
⁴ Technically, I think artisanal tissue culture is possible, and something people have done before, but because of the need for incredibly sterile facilities, equipment, and culture medium, one would need to be very lucky, skilled, or persistent. And a 70,000 m² greenhouse for growing out the plants after they're created would help too.

Pretty picture: Rhyncattleanthe Love Passion

I have no notes written for this one, so I guess it didn't move me particularly when I saw it at the show. It seems okay, I guess.

We've seen its pollen parent, Cattlianthe Trick or Treat, before, in 2012; compared to Trick or Treat, Love Passion is much more yellow, with larger but fewer blooms. And it photographs better.

Rhyncattleanthe Love Passion = Rhyncholaeliocattleya William Farrell x Cattlianthe Trick or Treat (Ref.)

Pretty picture: Paphiopedilum unregistered hybrid #3

When I get all the orchid-show photos uploaded and sorted out and I'm making the orchid-post schedule for the next year, I try to keep from putting orchids of similar shape or color back-to-back. The full process involves spreadsheets, and a little math, and takes several days to get sorted out completely. This isn't a back-to-back repeat with the previous unregistered Paphiopedilum hybrid, but it's close enough (less than a month apart!) to bother me a little.

Both of the unregistered hybrids from the show are really nice, though in completely different ways. I mean, I totally understand why the owners would have wanted to show them off (especially if they created the hybrids themselves).

Unpretty pictures: Bulbophyllum oxypterum

Sometimes when I title a post "unpretty pictures," it's a little tongue-in-cheek, and the pictures aren't actually that bad. This is not one of those times, though.

I mean, not that it isn't still interesting. B. pterophyllum is actually sort of fascinating. But pretty it isn't.

It would be a very long project to try to determine whether this is the single strangest orchid I've ever seen, but it's surely a contender, at least. Sort of like an Epiphyllum, but somehow even uglier. At least Epiphyllum have nice flowers.

Sure, I've grown and enjoyed plants whose appeal wasn't immediately obvious, but damn.

Pretty picture: Phalaenopsis Purple Queen

This one was striking for the sharpness of the purple/white divide. I don't remember seeing that in any other Phalaenopsis. It's probably especially impressive when one gets a really big spike, with lots of individual flowers. There aren't a lot of phals I can imagine really wanting to own, but I wouldn't mind having one of these. (Or I-Hsin Balloon. I mean, if you want a list, I could come up with a list.)

Most years, I'm not impressed with the Phalaenopsis at the show, but I really liked most of the ones I got photos of this year. Whether this is because they're getting better, my standards are lowering, or I'm just not taking photos of the boring ones, I'm not sure, but if I had to guess, I'd guess the third option. I know there was at least one gigantic plain-white phal that I didn't bother taking a picture of.

Phalaenopsis Purple Queen = Phalaenopsis Regnier x Phalaenopsis schilleriana (Ref.)

Pretty picture: Psychopsis Mariposa 'Twins'

The tag said 'Twin,' but the internet says it's 'Twins,' and PATSP is on the internet, so.

If this looks familiar, that's probably because it's the offspring of a previous orchid, Psychopsis Kalihi.

If it looks shitty, blame the brown background and the other orchids in the shot -- this was a bear of a photo to edit. I stopped editing not because I felt I'd gotten the best photo I was going to get, but because I was too frustrated with it to continue.

Psychopsis Mariposa 'Twins' = Psychopsis papilio x Psychopsis Kalihi (Ref.)

Pretty picture: Paphiopedilum unregistered hybrid #2

It's certainly possible that there are places selling unregistered orchid crosses, but I like the idea that someone in the Illowa Orchid Society might be breeding their own Paphiopedilums.

Of course I would like that idea, I suppose. But it doesn't seem so far-fetched. Orchid-flasking services exist, and Paphiopedilum is one of the genera they'll flask, so maybe? I mean, who uses flasking services, if not the people who like orchids so much that they enter them in shows, right?

In any case, whether one of the orchid show folks created it themselves or purchased it, I like this bloom. I think it's the white stripe across the top that clinches it for me.

Pretty picture: Miltoniopsis Echo Bay 'Midnight Tears'

It seems likely that the repeat orchids (previously: 2012, 2013) are the same specimens, being grown by the same people, coming back to the show year after year, but I've never asked.

You would think I could just compare the photos from year to year. Does it look like the same plant? Is it the same name tag? Well, then it's probably the same plant. The displays differ from year to year, though, and it's not always possible to get a whole-plant photo to compare. Like, this year, it was pretty difficult to get photos of entire plants without incorporating neighboring foliage and blooms (and ribbons, and name tags, etc.) in the shot as well, so crammed together were many of the displays. And I don't usually keep the pictures of the name tags once they've served their purpose, so I can't look at those either. So I don't know.

I like to imagine they're the same plants coming back year after year, though. Sort of a hey, good to see you, how've you been, mind if I get your picture? kind of thing. Or at least that's how it feels from my end.¹

Miltoniopsis Echo Bay 'Midnight Tears' = Miltoniopsis Woodlands x Miltoniopsis Rose Bay (Ref.)

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¹ I imagine the orchids think something along the lines of Oh, great, *this* asshole again.