# Paph. barbigerum var. sulivongii



## Martin (Dec 1, 2011)

Hi Folks,

would like to share 3 of my Paph barbigerum sulivongii, which have flowered last month:




Paphiopedilum barbigerum var. sulivongii von epicphals auf Flickr




Paphiopedilum barbigerum var. sulivongii von epicphals auf Flickr




Paphiopedilum barbigerum var. sulivongii von epicphals auf Flickr




Paphiopedilum barbigerum var. sulivongii von epicphals auf Flickr


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## Stone (Dec 1, 2011)

That second one kind of looks like my gratirxianum


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## eggshells (Dec 1, 2011)

Me likey! Could you tell us the size of the plant? It has more intense colours that the normal barbigerum.


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## tim (Dec 1, 2011)

in what way is this different from coccineum taxonomically?


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## SlipperFan (Dec 1, 2011)

They are all nice.


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## Paph_LdyMacBeth (Dec 1, 2011)

Beautiful group, well done!


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## jblanford (Dec 1, 2011)

I like them all, they look great.... Jim.


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## W. Beetus (Dec 1, 2011)

Great color!


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## biothanasis (Dec 2, 2011)

Gorgeous all of them!!!!!!


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## labskaus (Dec 2, 2011)

tim said:


> in what way is this different from coccineum taxonomically?



Tim, the description of the variety is here:

http://www.vdof.de/pdf/artikel1_2009.pdf

I see differences in colour, shape and stance of the dorsal, to barbigerum ssp. barbigerum and coccineum. This flower reminds me of hybrids between section Paphiopedilum and Barbata. For me there is a chance that this population/taxon has caught some barbata genes at some point in history.

Martin, I've seen a couple of pale, non-distinguished flowers of this variety. Yours are nice, congrats! I've noticed that one of your plant bears two flowers. Are these things good clumpers like coccineum? My sulivongii so far does not clump at all, but keeps its size at two old and one new growth.


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## Roth (Dec 2, 2011)

I have been the first one to handle plants of sulivongii over 10 years ago. At this time they came in boxes from Laos, sold by kilogram. They are still sold in Thailand, usually under the name 'coccineum'.

The wild plants look exactly like druryi, hard leaves, erect. The earlier imports all had a black stripe in the dorsal like druryi, now not anymore. I think they overcollect in Laos, and they touched new colonies, with different flowers.

It is really different from barbigerum or coccineum, at least sulivongii is more different from barbigerum than villosum is from gratrixianum, or from even insigne.

Barbigerum, I have not seen real ones for years, they used to come from China, very fragile plants with succulent small, dark green leaves. The leaf base was extremely thin.

Coccineum, that's a good question, it is a name for a very broad group of plants from Vietnam only ( China does not have it at all, that's why they always order coccineum from Vietnam for ages... and they finished/wiped out the barbigerum long time ago, except few plants), ranging from 5cm leafspan up to 80cm leafspan, usually quite narrow leaves, various size and shapes, I would say anything from helenae up to esquirolei for the leaf size, shape, color, and some clumping, some never at all. They have flowers that are highly variable, some even with spots, some with pink color ( like Aquagem photo), some dark red miniature on tiny plants, some very big things with brownish flowers ( that some people claimed to be rhizomatozum recently, or vejvarutianum, but those two things were really different plants the first time they were collected and sold), big things with speckled dorsal... There are intermediates, so either they were separate species that remixed together through natural hybridation, or they are one very variable species.

Sulivongii is again different, the leaves are quite thick, the flowers are like Martin plants, and it is not close to barbigerum or coccineum. At least, I would say that the differences are such that, if one considers villosum as diffferent from insigne, then sulivongii is a different species from barbigerum or coccineum. It has no intergrade between it and other species. Martin plants are really beautiful.

Some 'sulivongii' in the trade came from Vietnam, and they are not the same at all, they are just big types of coccineum.


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## Martin (Dec 3, 2011)

Thanks for your kind comments!



eggshells said:


> Me likey! Could you tell us the size of the plant? It has more intense colours that the normal barbigerum.



The plants in the front are potted in 8cm pods, the plant behind is in a 10cm pod. 



labskaus said:


> Martin, I've seen a couple of pale, non-distinguished flowers of this variety. Yours are nice, congrats! I've noticed that one of your plant bears two flowers. Are these things good clumpers like coccineum? My sulivongii so far does not clump at all, but keeps its size at two old and one new growth.



For my plants, it took a while until they have established, but now they are growing very nice and easy. But the plant with the 2 flowers is the only plant which clumps until now.


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## jjkOC (Dec 3, 2011)

I really like the spotting and coloration of the first one! They all look great!


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## tim (Dec 3, 2011)

i guess i get it for the first two, but the last flower seems just like coccineum to me. i wonder if we're ever going to get resolution in the barbigerum group - all these different size gradations and flower gradations make one think of a species swarm or something actively speciating....especially with the mixups of names. in any case beautiful plants martin. i wonder if we'll see these in the states.

it seems to me that when things are first discovered, everyone says species, and then over time all the intergrades between one species and the next are found and described and that at the end you're looking at one large extremely variable species separated simply by geographic distance and mountain ranges. Consider villosum - all its color forms, then some with a few spots in the dorsal, then gratrixianum then to purple gratrixianum, then to annamense then to boxallii - is this one big mess of a species? Every time we finally say ok this is the definition of a species, and character A defines it as one species and character B defines another species, Leonid or people in Thailand find that example which contains both A and B. Maybe this isn't making sense...interesting plants thanks for sharing...

Variations:
http://orchid.unibas.ch/phpMyHerbarium/302166/1////img/302166m.jpg


Another note - in the original description of this variety, the authors lump coccineum and vejvarutianum together and say simply that all these "varieties" are little more than geographic variations; suvilongii is simply a Laotian variation of the normal species, and has a specific varietal name because Averyanov and so forth name the varieties of barbigerum from Cambodia and Vietnam as different varieties. lol....even the taxnomists don't think these should be legitimately separated: "It could well be argued that varieties like these are nothing but extreme versions of Paph. barbigerum."


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## SlipperKing (Dec 9, 2011)

All three are really, really nice. They would all find a home in my GH!


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