# True species



## poozcard (May 27, 2011)

Hi everyone,

I again have a question 
If I have 2 plants, Plant A and Plant B.

1. Plant A

Plant A is a Paph collected from wild.
It looks an ordinary species without any characteristic of neither hybrids nor even natural hybrid at all.
When we do self cross we get some varience within the range that can be accepted as species.

2. Plant B

Plant B is a standard complex Paph. having a standard complex Paph as ancestor.
Plant B's ancestor has been crossed 1,000 times until given birth to Plant B.
When we do sib cross of Plant B with its siblings, all offsprings looks exactly the same, including 1st generation, 2nd generation and 3rd generation.


The question is, which one is more 'True species'? and Why?


:sob::sob::sob::sob:


----------



## Shiva (May 27, 2011)

I think by species, we mean natural species, those that have appeared on their own without the intervention of Man. There are also natural hybrids b/w species that are considered as such. It is not a question of looking alike, it's a result of natural selection.
As for complexes that look alike, you could talk of ''species'' resulting from unnatural selection.


----------



## likespaphs (May 27, 2011)

i will preface this with the statement that i understand only a little about genetics
unless the hybrid is stabilize, i do not believe that the offspring and subsequent generations will necessarily look like it.


----------



## Braem (May 27, 2011)

Well the answer is very simple: Plant (b) is definitely not a species because it is a hybrid (any standard complex Paph is).

Plant (a) can be assumed to be a species or a natural hybrid unless it is a man-made hybrid that has been put out in the wild (and that happens more often than one should assume). And you will get some variance when selfing a species of course ... there are many genes involved and in view of Mendel's law of independent assortment ..... (I will explain if you wish).


----------



## slippertalker (May 27, 2011)

If plant B is a complex hybrid consisting of several species and evolves from many generations, there will be considerable variation in the progeny.


----------



## gonewild (May 27, 2011)

likespaphs said:


> i will preface this with the statement that i understand only a little about genetics
> unless the hybrid is stabilize, i do not believe that the offspring and subsequent generations will necessarily look like it.



It is possible through careful selective breeding to have all the seedlings from a cross look almost exactly alike. They may or may not look like one of the parents but will look like their siblings. 

This process of selective breeding is how they create hybrid food crops like corn. When you buy a packet of corn seed at the nursery and plant it in your garden all the corn ears produced look alike, have the same size and shape, and the plants grow uniform and mature at the same time. But if you save seed from your garden produce and grow it the next year the results are much different and usually not nearly as good.


----------



## paphioboy (May 27, 2011)

I agree with Lance. If you have selected for certain traits/characteristics over others, this will dramatically reduce the size of the gene pool hence the offspring will look more and more similar (inbreeding). I don't think you can inbreed for thousands of generations though. Inbreeding depression will result and you will have to outcross (cross with other plants from different 'blood lines') eventually. If I'm not mistaken, this happened with albino cattleyas. After 5-6 generations of inbreeding, you can get very beautiful well-shaped flowers of good colour but the plants become very weak and difficult to grow.


----------



## poozcard (May 27, 2011)

Thanks everyone for answering. There are so many interesting idea 

Plant A: to me is some kind like natural species. Evoluation process has been in wild

Plant B: Evolution process is made by human.

It seems like natural made should be considered as the crucial reason of being species. But to my understanding, human made is also a part of nature. Could human made species, having evolution process in Lab (the lab is also a part of nature) be counted too?

Eventhough, the day that someone can make plant B has not arrived yet, but it will come for sure somedays.


----------



## KyushuCalanthe (May 28, 2011)

poozcard said:


> It seems like natural made should be considered as the crucial reason of being species. But to my understanding, human made is also a part of nature. Could human made species, having evolution process in Lab (the lab is also a part of nature) be counted too?



Dude, your like getting way too deep for me man.


----------



## Kevin (May 28, 2011)

The way I understand your original question, you are asking if a hybrid could be considered a species. I would say no. Yes, there is some variance in species, but a man-made hybrid is a hybrid, and is not a species, no matter how identical the generations are. If it doesn't occur naturally in the wild, it's not a species.


----------



## Kevin (May 28, 2011)

poozcard said:


> It seems like natural made should be considered as the crucial reason of being species. But to my understanding, human made is also a part of nature. Could human made species, having evolution process in Lab (the lab is also a part of nature) be counted too?



How is human made part of nature? Humans cannot create species.


----------



## poozcard (May 28, 2011)

Kevin said:


> How is human made part of nature? Humans cannot create species.



Because, in some senses, we, human ourselves, are also one species.

Human can be a pollinator, which this act, is also a part of natural phoenomenon.
The bees/insects may think that the wild is their own lab while human's lab is their wild.

:rollhappy::rollhappy::rollhappy:

Another case, let's call it Plant C:

Plant C is the natural hybrids may spend 1,000 more years to turn their blood purified. At that time, we may feel more comfortable to call it species.

What if human induce the process faster by multiple crossing with its siblings in the lab? Will Plant C's offsprings can be considered as species someday?


----------



## poozcard (May 28, 2011)

KyushuCalanthe said:


> Dude, your like getting way too deep for me man.



Haha, may i take it as a compliment?

All answers shared here make me very happy.
I think I am learning some nature's secret while reading this topic.
:clap::clap::clap:


----------



## Braem (May 28, 2011)

But if you are doing that, there is no point anymore to keep the term "species" alive ...


----------



## Braem (May 28, 2011)

poozcard said:


> Because, in some senses, we, human ourselves, are also one species.
> 
> Human can be a pollinator, which this act, is also a part of natural phoenomenon.
> The bees/insects may think that the wild is their own lab while human's lab is their wild.
> ...


Of course we are a species: it is called _Homo sapiens_


----------



## valenzino (May 28, 2011)

poozcard said:


> Because, in some senses, we, human ourselves, are also one species.
> 
> Human can be a pollinator, which this act, is also a part of natural phoenomenon.
> The bees/insects may think that the wild is their own lab while human's lab is their wild.
> ...



Poozcard,I understand your way to see things.I usually say,when starting lectures,that everithing depends on points of view...we can say that humans have made the orchids hybrids...or...that orchids have used humans to make faster their evolution and adapted also to human created environments(and ability of "adapt" is a way to evaluate intelligence in nature).Is always a matter of the eye that looks things...probably an Alien will explain things in a different way we do.
BUT...as we are humans,to classifie and understand things,and use them to comunicate,we have to create a code that is always "antropocentric".
If not antropocentric,also mathematics became a point of view and not a correct science.

I also always say that in the forest there are not nametags :rollhappy:
So a "Species" is something described somewhere that have to have particular
characteristics to be called species.Is not an universal truth but a way we can comunicate an idea eachother for further studies and to leave the knowledge in comprehensible way to our posterity.Is a code,and not a truth.


----------



## KyushuCalanthe (May 28, 2011)

poozcard said:


> Haha, may i take it as a compliment?
> :



Sure, by all means!

A species is just a name. I heard a lecture once about the concept of species that spoke of them as drifting swarms of genetic confluences...but I am paraphrasing this all in a terrible way and losing the elegance of the talk. Suffice it to say that species is definitely a human idea that is of course artificially attached to what we find in the world. Of course genetic engineers speak of creating new life forms through recombinant DNA research, so I don't know, but are those new "species" or just freaks? Yes, yes, their survivability outside a human controlled system is unlikely, but then again, who knows?

BTW, all the forests in Japan have name tags, just like people at work or children in schools. This is a very ordered society. If you want to be a new species, the application process is a real bear


----------



## KyushuCalanthe (May 28, 2011)

*Wow*

Hey Valenzino, dude, I looked at your photo stream and leapin' lizards you have some incredible plants! I don't know what I love better, your sanderianum collection, hangianum collection or that monster Phal. giganteum the most. Seriously wonderful stuff :clap:


----------



## insigne (May 28, 2011)

Hi everyone. After reading through the above enlightening discussion, I am wondering about the species that have gone through the human's extensively selective breeding. After several generations, the appearance (flower) of the offspring look so different from the original plants in the wild. Is it still righteous for those offspring to bear the same species name as the original plant?


----------



## Braem (May 28, 2011)

insigne said:


> Hi everyone. After reading through the above enlightening discussion, I am wondering about the species that have gone through the human's extensively selective breeding. After several generations, the appearance (flower) of the offspring look so different from the original plants in the wild. Is it still righteous for those offspring to bear the same species name as the original plant?


No


----------



## insigne (May 28, 2011)

Braem said:


> No



If not, what should we classify them?? A new species or a new artificial species or hybrid swarm...??


----------



## Braem (May 28, 2011)

insigne said:


> If not, what should we classify them?? A new species or a new artificial species or hybrid swarm...??


As a hybrid ... and hybrids vary considerably .... if you are going to make different taxonomic entities for each and every hybrid that is made, you are ending up with several hundred thousand entitities in orchids alone. That is no longer taxonomy, that is nonsense. Of cours you can argue that females are a different species than men, and then you can argue that the redhed with B cup is a different species than a redhead with C cup ... You can do that, but that is of course nonsense. A species is a naturally occurring population of interbreeding organisms (but note the "naturally occurring"), and that exclude the hybrids (and in plants there are some extra problems).


----------



## valenzino (May 28, 2011)

KyushuCalanthe said:


> Hey Valenzino, dude, I looked at your photo stream and leapin' lizards you have some incredible plants! I don't know what I love better, your sanderianum collection, hangianum collection or that monster Phal. giganteum the most. Seriously wonderful stuff :clap:



Thanks Tom,as soon I will revive my HD memory from my old laptop,will add others...Unfortunately jannuary 2010 I lost 1000+ plants in a very bad combination of misfortunes..(colder night ever...rat eating electric cables...generator broken...me in china,my brother in India,my mother in hospital with my father and much more...) my bigger greenhous gone -10C°...
Luckily all my most important plants were in the other greenhouse(that gone to 0C° so plants got extremely damaged but not died...inside there,the big gigantea,sanderianum and some roths...),and in the indoor growing area so all safe.I lost mostly the progenyI produced and some important plants but few.I still crying sometime thinking at it...
After 1 year + plants starting recover and doing flasking from beginning...



Braem said:


> ...and then you can argue that the redhed with B cup is a different species than a redhead with C cup ... You can do that, but that is of course nonsense.



will ask my friend what kind of beautifull species is his sister redhead with D Cup!!!:rollhappy:oke: 

[/QUOTE]...A species is a naturally occurring population of interbreeding organisms (but note the "naturally occurring"), and that exclude the hybrids (and in plants there are some extra problems).[/QUOTE]

Very simply and nicely explained!Thanks


----------



## insigne (May 28, 2011)

Braem said:


> As a hybrid ... and hybrids vary considerably .... if you are going to make different taxonomic entities for each and every hybrid that is made, you are ending up with several hundred thousand entitities in orchids alone. That is no longer taxonomy, that is nonsense. Of cours you can argue that females are a different species than men, and then you can argue that the redhed with B cup is a different species than a redhead with C cup ... You can do that, but that is of course nonsense. A species is a naturally occurring population of interbreeding organisms (but note the "naturally occurring"), and that exclude the hybrids (and in plants there are some extra problems).



Sorry, I do not quite understand your explanation. Let me show an example. I bring 2 plants of Paph concolor from the wild. I plan to breed them to get a real salmon colour. In the second generation (from crossing the 2 original plants), I select 2 offspring that show the most obvious salmon colouration at the back of the flower. I cross those 2 offspring to make the 3rd generation. When the 3rd generation bloom, I select the most salmon coloured clones and cross them to make another generation. Assume that I got solid slamon colour offspring in the fourth generation and the progeny are quite uniform. Are these still valid to call Paph concolor??


----------



## SlipperKing (May 28, 2011)

insigne said:


> Sorry, I do not quite understand your explanation. Let me show an example. I bring 2 plants of Paph concolor from the wild. I plan to breed them to get a real salmon colour. In the second generation (from crossing the 2 original plants), I select 2 offspring that show the most obvious salmon colouration at the back of the flower. I cross those 2 offspring to make the 3rd generation. When the 3rd generation bloom, I select the most salmon coloured clones and cross them to make another generation. Assume that I got solid slamon colour offspring in the fourth generation and the progeny are quite uniform. Are these still valid to call Paph concolor??



Yes, still the species, concolor. Only now it's conolor var. salamoniana just like concolor var. album, var. longipetalum or var. hennisianum. Get it?


----------



## Kevin (May 28, 2011)

SlipperKing said:


> Yes, still the species, concolor. Only now it's conolor var. salamoniana just like concolor var. album, var. longipetalum or var. hennisianum. Get it?



I don't quite get that. Are humans creating species now, or varieties of species? Isn't this just line-breeding, just like with Phrag besseae? Should the new improved besseaes, that look nothing like what occurs in the wild, now be called besseae var. gigantea, or some other name?


----------



## poozcard (May 28, 2011)

SlipperKing said:


> Yes, still the species, concolor. Only now it's conolor var. salamoniana just like concolor var. album, var. longipetalum or var. hennisianum. Get it?



In this case, with variance of color, should be consider as fma. salmonium.

:rollhappy::rollhappy::rollhappy:


----------



## poozcard (May 28, 2011)

valenzino said:


> Poozcard,I understand your way to see things.I usually say,when starting lectures,that everithing depends on points of view...we can say that humans have made the orchids hybrids...or...that orchids have used humans to make faster their evolution and adapted also to human created environments(and ability of "adapt" is a way to evaluate intelligence in nature).Is always a matter of the eye that looks things...probably an Alien will explain things in a different way we do.
> BUT...as we are humans,to classifie and understand things,and use them to comunicate,we have to create a code that is always "antropocentric".
> If not antropocentric,also mathematics became a point of view and not a correct science.
> 
> ...




:rollhappy:

I totally agree.

I think I get more idea of how should we classify species (that I previously ask in leuco topic) 

:rollhappy::rollhappy:


----------



## insigne (May 28, 2011)

Kevin said:


> I don't quite get that. Are humans creating species now, or varieties of species? Isn't this just line-breeding, just like with Phrag besseae? Should the new improved besseaes, that look nothing like what occurs in the wild, now be called besseae var. gigantea, or some other name?



That's exactly what my question is. The line breeding! And the progeny do not look like the wild population anymore. And I am sure that this process will greatly impact its genome/DNA. By human, these line breeding plants are moving further away from the wild plants. With vigorous selection, the tenth generation might have nothing in common with the wild population at all. Can we call it Paph concolor?


----------



## poozcard (May 28, 2011)

valenzino said:


> > ...A species is a naturally occurring population of interbreeding organisms (but note the "naturally occurring"), and that exclude the hybrids (and in plants there are some extra problems).
> 
> 
> 
> Very simply and nicely explained!Thanks



May I correct it a little bit.
:rollhappy:



> ...A species is a non-man-made occurring population of interbreeding organisms (but note the "non-man-made"), and that exclude the hybrids (and in plants there are some extra problems).




:evil:


----------



## poozcard (May 28, 2011)

insigne said:


> That's exactly what my question is. The line breeding! And the progeny do not look like the wild population anymore. And I am sure that this process will greatly impact its genome/DNA. By human, these line breeding plants are moving further away from the wild plants. With vigorous selection, the tenth generation might have nothing in common with the wild population at all. Can we call it Paph concolor?



I am not sure we can call it or not.
But in the market, they call it concolor.

:drool::drool::drool:


----------



## Rick (May 28, 2011)

I think one of the big differences between a line bred species and a full out complex hybrid is that you could stick it back out in the wild and its natural pollinators will go to it, and keep the population viable.

In the case of a complex hybrid plant the "natural polinator" has become Homo sapiens.And the "natural system" for these plants is a greenhouse. 

By twists of logic you might say that these fully domesticated mega hybirds are a newly created unnatural species (if they bred true), but the "nature" human beings create versus what happens in the absence of humans is totally different.

Just about any organism can "engineer" the natural system to its own liking. Beavers, elepahants, invasive weed species.... But because we humans rate ourselves as special (and have the power to obliterate every thing on the planet), we have come up with our own names and systems to justify are place in the world.


----------



## Rick (May 28, 2011)

Actually getting back to your original question.

I have been to talks by Hadley Cash, and talked to him later about breeding slippers.

My understanding is that breeding of complex's has fairly low production rates compared to breeding species. The germination rates can be poor, the rate of distorted or crippled flowers is high, and the variation in offspring is relatively high.

He would should two awarded parents and the outcome of breeding, but in general he was only showing us the best one or two of maybe a dozen surviving seedlings (of which half of them could have been tossed as cripples).

A lot of this was seen for Cattleyas too.

Periodically you get some genes inserted on a certain outcross that adds some significant genetic viability to increase production rates. Those finds have been critical in breeding programs even if they don't get "the look" you are shooting for.

But if it wasn't for human intervention complex hybrid paphs couldn't survive in a wilderness devoid of humans.


----------



## Rick (May 28, 2011)

insigne said:


> That's exactly what my question is. The line breeding! And the progeny do not look like the wild population anymore. And I am sure that this process will greatly impact its genome/DNA. By human, these line breeding plants are moving further away from the wild plants. With vigorous selection, the tenth generation might have nothing in common with the wild population at all. Can we call it Paph concolor?



I'd be surprised if after 10 generations of line breeding of a species, the the flower will not look "anything" like the original species.

I have yet to see a line bred charlesworthii become indistinguishable from a wild plant, but complex hybrids don't look anything like wild species , even after just the 4th or 5th crossing.

That still doesn't answer the question (or the utility of the question) of whether a line bred plant can be placed back in the jungle and have it carry on the race. Plants in the jungle are constrained by the capabilities of insect pollinators. In some cases I can see that a relatively small shift in flower size could allow for different species of pollinator to be able to do the deed.


----------



## SlipperKing (May 28, 2011)

These line bred species are what I like to call "hybrid species" These are man's vision of what the "prefect look" is for any given species not God's or nature's. Rick suggest, "you could stick it back out in the wild and its natural pollinators will go to it," For me, I think if the natural pollinator saw these monsters they'd be scared to death and fly or run the other way!


----------



## Rick (May 28, 2011)

SlipperKing said:


> These line bred species are what I like to call "hybrid species" These are man's vision of what the "prefect look" is for any given species not God's or nature's. Rick suggest, "you could stick it back out in the wild and its natural pollinators will go to it," For me, I think if the natural pollinator saw these monsters they'd be scared to death and fly or run the other way!



That's always a possibility Rick, but the "one-upmanship" strategy is a normal part of evolutionary biology. A standard trick of animal behavior is to exaggerate a trait to get a better response from the target organism.

A classic example is the European cuckoo that lays over-sized eggs (with the same color and spot pattern) as the target parasitized species. The hen sees the super big egg and preferentially sits on them, leaving her own eggs in the cold. 

Orchids in general are deceptive pollinators and use this behavior trick of nature to advance their own agenda. Looking like everyone else may help you hide from predators, but sexual selection is based on standing out from the crowd. I have no clue as to the tipping point between successful exaggeration, and "monster". Maybe that would be a good "test" for a linebred species plant, or close hybrid to see if could be successfully in its native range.


----------



## gonewild (May 28, 2011)

The issue with line bred species by human pollinators is how the parents are selected. Humans select mainly for flower beauty. Natural pollinators don't likely search out the best or biggest flower to deposit the pollen. What the do is stop at the next available flower. That might be on the same plant, a sibling of the plant or an unrelated plant.

Natural species evolution may be focused on leaf size or root length or some other "invisible" genetic trait that has given an individual plant within a species the ability to adapt and survive in an evolving environment. 

Attracting a pollinator with a beautiful flower is not where biological evolution is headed. But that is where cultivated species evolution heads.
Once humans select the parents and pamper the offspring the cultivated "species" ins no longer the same genetically as the wild species. Human intervention removes the traits that Nature evolved into a species that made it what it is.

So I have to agree, line bred cultivated species are not really "the species" any longer and more resemble hybrids. 

But then the whole concept of "species" is a human invention for human benefit.


----------



## Rick (May 28, 2011)

gonewild said:


> Humans select mainly for flower beauty. Natural pollinators don't likely search out the best or biggest flower to deposit the pollen.
> 
> Natural species evolution may be focused on leaf size or root length or some other "invisible" genetic trait that has given an individual plant within a species the ability to adapt and survive in an evolving environment.
> 
> ...




I don't totally agree Lance. The vegetative parts of an orchid (or any other plant really) have little to do with its ability to reproduce sexually (although it will make a big difference of it's success for vegetative propagation). We have seen how much variation in what we call plant habit is out there in the wild for plants to survive. And I would agree that a lot of that variation in plant habit (basic plant physiology) is lost in line breeding of plants under GH conditions.


Sexual reproduction in orchids is not a random process by completely incoherent insects (unlike wind blown pollen for pine trees). Which is why we see all the fantastic diversity in orchid flowers. Unlike survival of an individual that depends on the quality of its vegetative success, the ability of that individual to pass its genes into another generation is dependent on its ability to attract a mate. Granted the insect is the go-between for two plants to sexually reproduce, but they are still attracted to these flowers for specific reasons, and the stronger the attractant stimuli the greater the chance of successful pollination. If there was no selection by pollinators how could we every get bucket orchids from pansies? 

There is definitely a component of selection by the insects that pollinate orchids, but you are correct that there may be aspects of the flower that attract the bug that may be totally offensive to a human being. But I'm equally sure that insect pollinators could care less about the leaf quality of a flowering plant in the jungle when making its selection of flowers to pollinate.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder they say!

I'm not sure where the premise of this whole argument is trying to go.

Advocacy of hybridization? Keeping species pure?

There are some that say once the plant is removed from the wild it is no longer a species. So why not breed indiscriminately and just shut up and love the pretty flowers. Some people like to mix up all the food on their plate and eat a homogenous plate of food.

Some like to keep there "species" pure, and somewhere, draw the line (in a totally gray field) as to how far they will out cross or line breed to maintain a species "concept". Some people like to keep their vegies separate from their meat, and eat from separate selections on their plates.

Rather than arguing what is right or wrong maybe we should have a survey of preference for hybrids or species?


----------



## gonewild (May 28, 2011)

Rick said:


> I don't totally agree Lance. The vegetative parts of an orchid (or any other plant really) have little to do with its ability to reproduce sexually (although it will make a big difference of it's success for vegetative propagation). We have seen how much variation in what we call plant habit is out there in the wild for plants to survive. And I would agree that a lot of that variation in plant habit (basic plant physiology) is lost in line breeding of plants under GH conditions.



The vegetative genetic qualities of an orchid have everything to with it's ability to reproduce sexually. The vegetative qualities of a wild plant are what enable the plant to survive the environment long enough to produce a flower for reproduction. As the environment changes (evolves) a species must change to match it or perish. The vegetative part of the plant species is what needs to adapt and survive the environment 365 days per year. 

Certainly in Nature both flower and vegetative genetic traits are equally important for species survival. In Nature both are involved in species reproduction and continued existence. But in an orchid breeding program where the flower is always given priority and weak plants with beautiful flowers are artificially nursed towards reproductive opportunities the true species qualities are lost. When I say 'qualities" I'm not referring to beauty but rater the ability to survive in an environment that the species naturally evolved in.



> I'm not sure where the premise of this whole argument is trying to go.
> 
> Advocacy of hybridization? Keeping species pure?
> 
> Some like to keep there "species" pure, and somewhere, draw the line (in a totally gray field) as to how far they will out cross or line breed to maintain a species "concept".



I'm not arguing any point. I like species and I like hybrids. But if I were going to collect "species" orchids and value my collection as "species" I would want plants that were originally collected from the wild. Then I would have a valuable collection of genuine natural specimens.



> Some people like to keep their vegies separate from their meat, and eat from separate selections on their plates.



Yes but after they eat the meat and vegies the result is always sh**!
(couldn't resist)


----------



## Rick (May 28, 2011)

gonewild said:


> I'm not arguing any point. I like species and I like hybrids. But if I were going to collect "species" orchids and value my collection as "species" I would want plants that were originally collected from the wild. Then I would have a valuable collection of genuine natural specimens.





Well that pretty much runs down to about 1% of orchids in collections these days. What nature is left out there is not accessible to the taking like it was 100 years ago. So I guess I'd have to admit that I just keep species wannabe's.


----------



## gonewild (May 28, 2011)

Rick said:


> Well that pretty much runs down to about 1% of orchids in collections these days. What nature is left out there is not accessible to the taking like it was 100 years ago. So I guess I'd have to admit that I just keep species wannabe's.




Same is true about art. Do you want an original watercolor or a print? Both look equally well hanging on the wall. Heck with a print off the original you can increase the color saturation to make it more brilliant, more colorful. While you are at it why not double the size? It is still a print of the same original and still has everything the artist put into it and more. 

I guess the line bred species are like prints of original artwork.
Whatever they are they are nice to have and worth enjoying.


----------



## Rick (May 28, 2011)

gonewild said:


> Same is true about art. Do you want an original watercolor or a print? Both look equally well hanging on the wall. Heck with a print off the original you can increase the color saturation to make it more brilliant, more colorful. While you are at it why not double the size? It is still a print of the same original and still has everything the artist put into it and more.
> 
> I guess the line bred species are like prints of original artwork.
> Whatever they are they are nice to have and worth enjoying.



I can work with this analogy.

1) prints are frequently produced by the original artist (or his minions) so that people of lesser means can enjoy the art, and to preserve the original intent of the original for large scale appreciation. (What if the original is stolen, lost, otherwise destroyed)?

2) you can only exaggerate a print of an original so much before even the masses get clued in to how different it is from the real thing.

3) Although you can infinitely increase the size of a print, line breeding is likely only to get you 20-30 percent increase over many generations.

Gotta leave for dinner, but look up the works by Curtis Bartone. http://curtisbartone.com/02statement.html This is great art (some pieces with orchids), and generally pertinent for this discussion. I saw his works on a recent trip to Savannah, GA. Check out this one! http://curtisbartone.com/01gallery208.html


----------



## KyushuCalanthe (May 28, 2011)

valenzino said:


> Thanks Tom,as soon I will revive my HD memory from my old laptop,will add others...Unfortunately jannuary 2010 I lost 1000+ plants in a very bad combination of misfortunes..(colder night ever...rat eating electric cables...generator broken...me in china,my brother in India,my mother in hospital with my father and much more...) my bigger greenhous gone -10C°...
> Luckily all my most important plants were in the other greenhouse(that gone to 0C° so plants got extremely damaged but not died...inside there,the big gigantea,sanderianum and some roths...),and in the indoor growing area so all safe.I lost mostly the progenyI produced and some important plants but few.I still crying sometime thinking at it...
> After 1 year + plants starting recover and doing flasking from beginning...



Sorry to hear that man. That is a total bummer. I lost a big Platycerium superbum that I grew for 5 years to cold this winter. I'm not happy about that, but most everything else pulled through OK. The vagaries of life...:sob:


----------



## poozcard (May 28, 2011)

gonewild said:


> Natural species evolution may be focused on leaf size or root length or some other "invisible" genetic trait that has given an individual plant within a species the ability to adapt and survive in an evolving environment.



I partially disagree.

I think the root/leaves size will not be focused by the pollinator (excluding human)

In my opinion, the evolution will focus mainly on the sexual function.
Those plants having the best attractive sexual organism will also have highest opportunity to get pollination successful.

Some other "invisible" genetic that I think may occur in this case is something involving with sexual function such as smell, taste, touch, hairs , etc.... but I do not think the roots or leaves are included.

The offsprings will have some charaters influenced by their papa and mama.
Of course it is not by intention of the pollinator to get those characters but it is because their parents won the roulette.

:rollhappy:


----------



## poozcard (May 28, 2011)

Rick said:


> I don't totally agree Lance. The vegetative parts of an orchid (or any other plant really) have little to do with its ability to reproduce sexually (although it will make a big difference of it's success for vegetative propagation). We have seen how much variation in what we call plant habit is out there in the wild for plants to survive. And I would agree that a lot of that variation in plant habit (basic plant physiology) is lost in line breeding of plants under GH conditions.
> 
> 
> Sexual reproduction in orchids is not a random process by completely incoherent insects (unlike wind blown pollen for pine trees). Which is why we see all the fantastic diversity in orchid flowers. Unlike survival of an individual that depends on the quality of its vegetative success, the ability of that individual to pass its genes into another generation is dependent on its ability to attract a mate. Granted the insect is the go-between for two plants to sexually reproduce, but they are still attracted to these flowers for specific reasons, and the stronger the attractant stimuli the greater the chance of successful pollination. If there was no selection by pollinators how could we every get bucket orchids from pansies?
> ...



I totally agree with you in all texts above.
I also vote for a survey.

:clap::clap::clap::clap:


----------



## poozcard (May 28, 2011)

Rick said:


> Well that pretty much runs down to about 1% of orchids in collections these days. What nature is left out there is not accessible to the taking like it was 100 years ago. So I guess I'd have to admit that I just keep species wannabe's.



For species purity conservation, Sharp/Detailed definition of all variety including infraspecies/locality classification would very much help.

:clap::clap::clap:


----------



## Roth (May 28, 2011)

It's way more complicated.

Take an extreme example:

Let's say you cross a ciliolare ( acid loving species) with a hangianum (limestone loving species). When you flask the progeny, you make the seed sowing at pH 5.5 or 6.8, with or without calcium, the seedlings that grow 'well' will not be the same in all cases... When you grow them in the nursery, if you do not use lime and grow the plants in fern roots, the plants that favors ciliolare for the acid-loving habit will grow well, the others sulk. If you grow them in limestone chips, the ciliolare-style will sulk, and the hangianum style will grow. Now we do not know anything about heredity, so it is possible that the genes are transmitted as a package, like lime adaptation and fragrance for hangianum.It is very simplistic and not accurate, but it's a concept that has been proven.

Now, with the complex hybrids, if you use a lot of lime, you will favor progeny that have certain traits, if you don't you will favor others seedlings. In both instances there will be very good growers, and very poor ones, but not the same plants. 

As an example, with Lippewunder, plants from the original crosses perform very well in Taiwan and Japan. Gorgeous plants grown in Germany, that have been bred 2-3 generations further (Lippewunder x Lippewunder, and again and again), die quite quickly in both those countries, side by side with great clumps of original Lippewunder but are easy to grow for US people. As a fact, it is very difficult to grow vintage complexes and the latest generation of Lippewunder. The latter, through selection in another German nursery that grew them in a very different way from the original ones, flasking, and further line breeding, have very different nutrition and pH requirements. The f1-f2 Lippewunder can grow in pure sphag moss, the f4-f5 cannot. All are gorgeous plants if grown properly, but they cannot be grown together without specific adjustments for one or the other group...

That's what I call unwanted selection, and explains too why crosses with the same parents, done at different times, hence with different TC media and growing conditions afterwards, do not give the same result. The runts of each nursery are not the same for the same cross with the same cultivar.

It has been studied commercially with phals and with odonts. This explains too why the f2 f3 plants of many species perform 'better' than wild plants in cultivation, but this explains too that maybe we have lost a lot of potential, and growing oddities in cultivation in term of nutrient, light, temperatures requirements.

That's why I would agree with Guido that 'linebred' species or art propagated species, after a while are not 'species' anymore...

Add to that that maybe in the f4 f5 of some species, some people had added another species to make the result more attractive like many concolor, godefroyae, spicerianum, insigne, stonei, glaucophyllum, primulinum... that have a percentage of another species, but look like an improvement over the wild plants, or extinct plants like callosum 'Sanderae', lawrenceanum 'Hyeanum', curtisii 'Sanderae' that no longer exists and are represented by lookalike hybrids in cultivation today masquerading under the species names.

I know as a fact for having selfed and sibbed some godefroyae, lawrenceanum 'hyeanum' etc... that they are not species, but hybrids. For lawrenceanum and callosum it was easy, people selfed Maudiae 'Magnificum' and selected progeny looking like lawrenceanum or like callosum. Unfortunately, selfings of those plants will suddenly make a few progeny that is not 'right'. Like the callosum sanderae around in Japan. When selfed, suddenly there will be few plants with flat symmetrical dorsal, horizontal petals, and leaf mottling of lawrenceanum. Very few, but enough. Many leucochilum selfings and siblings from Thailand will suddenly throw out a few seedlings with heavily mottled, wide soft leaves typical of bellatulum. Eventually when bloomed they will have spots like a bellatulum. After many generations of 'breeding' if the species has been contaminated by another species in the early generations, it is not a species anymore, forever. That's why what we are doing in cultivation 'species propagation' is only for artistic purpose, but never for any 'conservation' purpose. We cannot guarantee species purity in cultivation, that's very clear...


----------



## poozcard (May 28, 2011)

Roth said:


> It's way more complicated.
> 
> Take an extreme example:
> 
> ...




Your argument is so strong to me.
I am convinced.

:clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap:


----------



## Rick (May 28, 2011)

poozcard said:


> Your argument is so strong to me.
> I am convinced.
> 
> :clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap::clap:



So going back to the analogy of the of the artists print vs the genuine original drawing, is the print good enough to keep you from coveting the last of the originals in the wild? If your tastes are more inclined to all out fantasy plants why would you worry about prints vs originals when you could just make your own and be happy with them. How far are you willing to modify the print before it means nothing to you compared to the genuine article?

I posted a link to a drawing by Curtis Bartone that has a bucket orchid and I think a schombergia. It's going for $700 (probably equivalent to ~3 line bred BS sanderianum). Legal exports of collected sanderianum stopped years ago, so what few legal stud plants that still exist are way beyond my means.

But I don't expect sanderianum to last in the wild during my lifetime, so a "print" (cultured plant) is close enough to "possess" something I may never experience in person. But once I've seen the original, I would be diligent for things that don't match the picture, and even if the hybrid is beautiful, it doesn't have the same meaning and context of the species (line bred or not). When I see a species plant (even if its GH, line bred cultured), I relate to the ecosystem/ and evolution that created this plant form over millions of years. When I see a hybrid I can only relate to its superficial beauty that the hybridizer created maybe in the last year maybe as much as 100 years ago.

When I look at a species flower I see images of jungles and all its inner workings. When I look at a hybrid I think of cities, greenhouses, and mega grow-out facilities. Since I live surrounded in a jam packed human interventionist society already I personally can't get past the superficial beauty of a hybrid as anything meaningful.


----------



## Rick (May 28, 2011)

Put in a context of human race relations try this.

How many African-, Chinese-, Philippine-, Mexican-, Italian-, German-, Greek-.....Americans consider themselves as "pure" Americans even though they are several generations away from their original homeland ancestry? Not many. Many are proud of their ethnic heritage, and I personally find the semblance of American cultural diversity very interesting. 

Every one wants to be authentic even when the foods, climate, language ..... are nothing like what formed their original cultures in their countries of origin.

Yes there are conflicts over this too. Native Americans were put on reservations and children sent to boarding schools to loose their culture and become "Americans". Today we still have anti immigrant laws such as the "English only" laws. 

Seems like there is always a tension between diversity and homogenization.


----------



## poozcard (May 29, 2011)

Eventhough the thing is real there, but what we are trying to call it is not real.
It is what the Buddha said about Anatta.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatta


----------



## Rick (May 29, 2011)

I guess if we were all that enlightened we would not keep anything (especially orchids), not breed organisms to be slaves of our desires, stay out of the jungles except only to appreciate the beauty of life that is there on its own, and not convert the jungles to golf coarses, strip mines, palm oil plantations .......

This is a mindset not achieved by the vast majority of humanity (regardless of their professed spirituality).

My interpretation of the concept of Anatta is that ownership is false and subjugating any life to our will is false ( and not real, or produces happiness).

I think this would apply to any type of organism breeding, even for food.

I agree that if everyone was a Buddhist monk (or truly followed the teachings of Jesus) there would be a lot more undisturbed nature left on this planet.


----------



## Braem (May 29, 2011)

SlipperKing said:


> These line bred species are what I like to call "hybrid species" These are man's vision of what the "prefect look" is for any given species not God's or nature's. Rick suggest, "you could stick it back out in the wild and its natural pollinators will go to it," For me, I think if the natural pollinator saw these monsters they'd be scared to death and fly or run the other way!


"A hybrid species" is a contradiction by itself ... it is like a "bicycle car" or a "female male". I wonder how much people want to crew up taxonomy ... and then complain about "taxonomy" being complicated.


----------



## Ozpaph (May 29, 2011)

Well I didn't intend this to be my first post (without an introduction - that can wait) but I think many have missed the obvious and this is a very interesting thread.

Take Paph. delenatii as a perfect example of a species which has been line bred in captivity for probably 10-15 generations. For those not aware, briefly (and my interpretation) , it was brought back to France (2 plants I think) from Vietnam in the early 1900's. Vacerot and Lecoufle selfed/crossed the plants and for over 50 years EVERY delenatii in cultivation was from those plants. Generation after generation of very similar offspring. A very stable population of plants which became easier to grow as the generations past (as I've read). This is a great example of what would have happened to paph delenatii over hundreds of generations in the wild and effectively defines a species - a population of stable, similar, interbreeding individuals. There were no double size mutants, spotted flowers etc etc. We had to wait till 1993 when another colony of delenatii was discovered and now we have an alba form and a dark pouched form - variations on a theme and interbreedable with the common population of plants.

I dont think anyone in those 50 yrs of the lost delenatii would say "oh no that's a hybrid not a species'. And if you compare the line bred plants to the newly collected plants, guess what, they look much the same and interbreed. Hence my point about stability of a species. Yes, we can line breed for flowers that look better by judging criteria but they are still a species. Just like most of the paph roths in circulation.

'Dramatic' changes to the species only occur if chance polyploidy occurs or someone/something introduces genes from another species. To add some flavour, I suspect that 'species' that look similar (perhaps bullenianum and hookerae) have a common genetic heritage where a new colony has grown and become genetically separated from the 'old' and interbred to produce a new variant through natural selection (ie. 'evolution'). Cheers.


----------



## paphioboy (May 29, 2011)

Hello OZpaph and welcome to the ST..  You bring up a valid point about the (in)ability to interbreed being a distinguishing characteristic for a species. That may be true for animals, but in plants (and orchids in particular), not only can plants from different species hybridize to produce fertile hybrids, but even between different genera.. But you wouldn't call them all the same species, right?


----------



## Rick (May 29, 2011)

Ozpath

Your example of delenatii is right on point. I brought up the example of charlesworthii for the same reason, but also since we had a recent thread on line-bred vs natural on that species too.

I found some old illustrations from the late 1800's to early 1900's and in comparison to present day charlesworthii they are still recognizable as the species. Plant keys in taxonomic works list the flower dimensions of jungle collected flowers and even for charlesworthii, delenatii, and rothchildianum the cultured plants (with normal ploidy) produce flowers that are maybe only 20% bigger than the upper end of the range of wild plants.

So yes, they are at least facsimiles of the original wild species ancestor. And I don't see a problem with leaving a species label on them. 

I will also agree that they have lost an unknown amount of their eco-context
when selected for growth in artificial culture. But the genes they have are what's left of the original set, nothing new added, so I don't see line breeding as a reason to change taxonomic status.


----------



## poozcard (May 29, 2011)

Rick said:


> I will also agree that they have lost an unknown amount of their eco-context
> when selected for growth in artificial culture. But the genes they have are what's left of the original set, nothing new added, so I don't see line breeding as a reason to change taxonomic status.



Do you think that the eco is changed too?

Ecology of 2011 should be quite far from what it was in 18XX when they firstly found those paph.

If some of those Paphs which were collected those days still alive, you bring them to their eco, they may die almost immediately.

:rollhappy::rollhappy::rollhappy:


----------



## Ozpaph (May 29, 2011)

paphioboy said:


> Hello OZpaph and welcome to the ST..  You bring up a valid point about the (in)ability to interbreed being a distinguishing characteristic for a species. That may be true for animals, but in plants (and orchids in particular), not only can plants from different species hybridize to produce fertile hybrids, but even between different genera.. But you wouldn't call them all the same species, right?



The ability to breed outside the species only shows that they are genetically similar, not the same. Humans are all the same species but different races exist and are all interbreedable. I suppose the 'races' are varietals?? It is believed that homo sapiens did co-exist and 'interbreed' with other humaniods, different species, before homo sapiens predominated, but thats another story. Remember that taxonomy/classification is a man made construct designed to impose order on nature which is 'chaotic'. Also, within taxonomists we have so called 'lumpers' and 'splitters' - those that aggregate similar objects ( eg bouganvillianum and violascens)and those that further subdivide down to even 'purer' forms (eg the praestans complex -http://www.orchidspng.com/contrib_garay2.html) , making speciation a somewhat moving target.((forgive my examples if they are not the best but I think they illustrate the point)).


----------



## Braem (May 29, 2011)

Ozpaph said:


> Well I didn't intend this to be my first post (without an introduction - that can wait) but I think many have missed the obvious and this is a very interesting thread.
> 
> Take Paph. delenatii as a perfect example of a species which has been line bred in captivity for probably 10-15 generations. For those not aware, briefly (and my interpretation) , it was brought back to France (2 plants I think) from Vietnam in the early 1900's. Vacerot and Lecoufle selfed/crossed the plants and for over 50 years EVERY delenatii in cultivation was from those plants. Generation after generation of very similar offspring. A very stable population of plants which became easier to grow as the generations past (as I've read). This is a great example of what would have happened to paph delenatii over hundreds of generations in the wild and effectively defines a species - a population of stable, similar, interbreeding individuals. There were no double size mutants, spotted flowers etc etc. We had to wait till 1993 when another colony of delenatii was discovered and now we have an alba form and a dark pouched form - variations on a theme and interbreedable with the common population of plants.
> 
> ...


Of course line bred species are a species and as long as nothing else is crosed in ... it remains the species ... as soon as something else is crossed in, it is a hybrid. Thus, there is nothing difficult about that.

The same thing is to be said of charlesworthii or any species for that.

And if you take the overall "population" of those line breads .. you will find that the percentage of "larger flowers" (or whatever variation for that) will be exactly the same as in a wild growing population.

One last point ... "judging criteria" have nothing to do with taxonomy.


----------



## Sirius (May 29, 2011)

Braem said:


> "A hybrid species" is a contradiction by itself ... it is like a "bicycle car" or a "female male". I wonder how much people want to crew up taxonomy ... and then complain about "taxonomy" being complicated.



I think taxonomists have done a fine job of screwing up taxonomy all by themselves. We non-taxonomists just get caught in the crossfire, busily changing our plant labels every five minutes.


----------



## Braem (May 29, 2011)

poozcard said:


> Do you think that the eco is changed too?
> 
> Ecology of 2011 should be quite far from what it was in 18XX when they firstly found those paph.
> 
> ...


Of course the ecology has changed ... it is constantly changing ... but manmade changes go faster that natural changes. And that, of course may result (over millions of years - not ove two centuries) in the development of new species through adaptation.


----------



## Ozpaph (May 29, 2011)

poozcard said:


> Do you think that the eco is changed too?
> 
> Ecology of 2011 should be quite far from what it was in 18XX when they firstly found those paph.
> 
> ...



I dont agree. Most untouched wilderness areas have quite stable environmental conditions, on average. Global temperatures may have changed slightly over 200 years but that variance compared to the summer - winter changes is relatively minor. Also rainfall patterns are just that - longterm and predictable. Its only when man interferes directly that local ecosystems change and threaten endemic species. That's why reforestation works.


----------



## Ozpaph (May 29, 2011)

Braem said:


> One last point ... "judging criteria" have nothing to do with taxonomy.



Of course, but 'judging criteria' influences line breeding and shifts the Bell curve of natural variance in the cultivated species toward certain characteristics.


----------



## Rick (May 29, 2011)

poozcard said:


> Do you think that the eco is changed too?
> 
> Ecology of 2011 should be quite far from what it was in 18XX when they firstly found those paph.
> 
> ...



Actually the ecology will not be that drastically different from what it was in the 1800s. A dessert is caused by a certain set of environmental conditions that are totally different from those that form rain forests. The locations of desserts and rain forests may have shifted a little in the last 200 years, but the conditions required to create them have changed very little. Species are formed in response to the cumulative forces of nature. Extinctions are caused by sudden major changes in environment (ecology). Unlike humans, slipper orchids do not "create" the environment that suites them (certainly not at time frames we can detect).

People transplant things all the time (including orchids). We recently had a thread on what species from all around the world would survive in Florida. Actually its not that uncommon for people to take cultured plants, stick them outside (often in foreign ecosystems) and the individual plant survives just fine. In some unfortunate cases the plants become obnoxious weeds because there natural control mechanism (predators) are absent. Once again Florida has orchid examples where African Oceoclades are abundant weed orchid species.

You may have read the thread I posted on "one of my favorite natives". I've been transplanting nursery grown native woodland species into my yard that previously was your typical manicured mowed grass yard. We conditioned portions of our yard to return it to a woodland condition (covering up the grass with sheets of cardboard, and bury with about a foot of mulch and leaves). We have many species that are adapting to the conditions and spreading by natural seed dispersal to places in the yard we didn't originally plant them. We planted a vine species that is used by specific butterfly species to feed its larvae, and after 3 years, that butterfly has found our yard and uses these thriving cultivars to feed hundreds of larvae.

I see lots of photos from cities in tropical places where people transplant orchids onto buildings, backyard gardens, and bridges. Some are species and some are hybrids. They look pretty healthy to me.

I have also read success stories of lab propagated Australian terrestrials being reintroduced to places where they had become extirpated (apparently the trick was to include the appropriate mychorrizae fungi in the seed germination mix).

There are many examples of cultivated species transplanted to either novel or original environments that are successful. I fully understand that there are many examples of failure too.


----------



## Rick (May 29, 2011)

Here's an exercise:

The natural flower span of a few of the most line bred species.

rothschildianum 14-30 cm
delenatii 7.5 to 8 cm
charlesworthii 8 cm
sukhakulii 11-14.3 cm

from Cribb.

Now if someone has access to AQ plus or some other award record system can you look up the biggest (flower span) awarded example of each species so we can put a number to the magnitude of change caused by culture and line breeding?


----------



## Rick (May 29, 2011)

I was thinking back some more on an earlier statement about the effects primarily due to mankind. But trees can also be significant manipulators of environment over decade time frames.

The loss of a single big tree can create a whole new(temporary) microhabitat.

But that's a whole other branch of successional habitat changes not really pertinent to this discussion.


----------



## poozcard (May 29, 2011)

Rick said:


> I was thinking back some more on an earlier statement about the effects primarily due to mankind. But trees can also be significant manipulators of environment over decade time frames.
> 
> The loss of a single big tree can create a whole new(temporary) microhabitat.
> 
> But that's a whole other branch of successional habitat changes not really pertinent to this discussion.




That is one of the point I could extract from this discussion.

The species can be evolved from natural causes except due to human.
In this case, human is denied to be a part of nature (eventhough we are)
This is the definition that I have to follow for the word species.


----------



## poozcard (May 29, 2011)

Braem said:


> Of course line bred species are a species and as long as nothing else is crosed in ... it remains the species ... as soon as something else is crossed in, it is a hybrid. Thus, there is nothing difficult about that.
> 
> The same thing is to be said of charlesworthii or any species for that.
> 
> ...



Roth found you believe that linebreds are not species anymore.
http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=290880&postcount=47

Could you please kindly explain this contradiction?
Thank you.


----------



## paphreek (May 29, 2011)

Rick said:


> Here's an exercise:
> 
> The natural flower span of a few of the most line bred species.
> 
> ...



From OrchidWiz:

rothschildianum: 'Rex' 38.0cm median: 26.o cm
delenatii: 'Hat Trick' 11.0 cm median:8.8 cm
charlesworthii: 'Rona's Pride' 9.0 cm median: 7.4 cm largest dorsal: 'Laura' 8.1 cm
sukhakulii: 'Cow Hollow' 16.5 cm. median:14.0 cm


----------



## Rick (May 30, 2011)

paphreek said:


> From OrchidWiz:
> 
> rothschildianum: 'Rex' 38.0cm median: 26.o cm
> delenatii: 'Hat Trick' 11.0 cm median:8.8 cm
> ...


----------



## Rick (May 30, 2011)

poozcard said:


> That is one of the point I could extract from this discussion.
> 
> The species can be evolved from natural causes except due to human.
> In this case, human is denied to be a part of nature (eventhough we are)
> This is the definition that I have to follow for the word species.



Generally humans haven't been around long enough to influence a lot of organisms genetic status except in the case of very high turnover organisms like bacteria and insects. These cases are brought up as cases of evolution occurring during a human generation.

Disease bacteria resistant to antibiotics, insects impervious to pesticides. Still in many cases of the above we just see adaptive mutation at small numbers of gene loci, but not enough change in many cases to call them new species. The bacteria case is pretty close when people study the bacteria flora below cattle feed lots (that use lots of antibiotics). Successful bacteria species are swapping plasmids with other species (almost like hybridizing) and generating very new genetic concepts altogether.

For most other "higher" life forms, humans are a driver of extinction rather than evolution. Humans generally alter environmental conditions so radically and so fast that there is little in the genetic "deck of cards' for most organisms to adapt with and subsequently breed new populations of adaptive organisms to the new environment. However, I did hear of a population of rattleless rattlesnakes popping up in Southern California. Rattles where warnings to keep big grazing herbivores (like buffalo) to keep the snakes from getting stepped on. But now when a snake rattles it normally gets its head chopped off with a shovel. So because of humans, it is no longer adaptive for these rattlesnakes to warn large organisms to stay away. 

Even though humans are of nature by default of being on planet earth, the majority of human race does not consider itself part of nature, and chooses to exploit and destroy natural resources to produce an environment of human choice not dependent on "natural" conditions. This generally means forests converted to grassland, grassland converted to orchard, grassland converted to desert, all of the above converted to city, industrial parks, strip mines....

There are a handful of very adaptive species like cockroaches, rats, sparrows, starlings, and domesticated animals and plants that we keep around to feed ourselves with, but most other species just go away.


----------



## gonewild (May 30, 2011)

poozcard said:


> I partially disagree.
> 
> I think the root/leaves size will not be focused by the pollinator (excluding human)
> 
> ...



No, the roots and leaves are not focused by the pollinator. But if the vegetative part of the plant does not "evolve' with the changing environment there will be no flower produced to attract pollinators. If the vegetative part of the plant has genetic properties that allow it to survive and flourish in it's ever changing environment it will produce a flower for reproduction. If the genetics of the plant do not adapt to changes in the environment there will be no flower for sexual reproduction so therefor the vegetative part of the plant is the focus of evolution.


----------



## Rick (May 30, 2011)

gonewild said:


> No, the roots and leaves are not focused by the pollinator. But if the vegetative part of the plant does not "evolve' with the changing environment there will be no flower produced to attract pollinators. If the vegetative part of the plant has genetic properties that allow it to survive and flourish in it's ever changing environment it will produce a flower for reproduction. If the genetics of the plant do not adapt to changes in the environment there will be no flower for sexual reproduction so therefor the vegetative part of the plant is the focus of evolution.



Although I agree with your general concept Lance, in my experience the adaptability of individual plants to survive to blooming is much greater than I think we give them credit for. On the one hand we get a plant in from the wild, and adapt it (or at least a small percentage of the group) to a set of GH conditions. How many of these conditions are the same to start with?

Then you have people growing in moss, CHC, diatomite, bark, rubber tires, semi hydro, .......to the point where it becomes apparent that none of these make a difference anyway. Then you have MSU, Jack's, Jungle green, blood meal, bonemeal, limestone and oyster shell, no supplementation at all.......and they still grow ok. Then they water with DI, RO, Nashville tap, Chicago tap, Los Angeles tap..... and they still survive. Pots, baskets, plastic clay wood. 

The amount of uncontrolled variables from around the country is enormous, and just about everyone can get some of it to work! The more I keep learning and experiencing, orchids are plants and probably 80% of there requirements are the same. That's a lot of latitude.

Then we see insitu pics of phrags flowering in the sun with small pale leaves, and phrags flowering under a rock overhang with long dark leaves. Paphs growing on dripping moss covered limestone cliffs (without rotting roots or Erwinia infections). Lowii growing in trees, lowii growing on limestone cliffs. Rothschildianum growing in a garden in the Kinabalu state park. 

There are undoubtedly going to be species we just can't figure out. Most likely things restricted to a very small range. But I'll bet we would be OK for the bulk of things we try.


----------



## gonewild (May 30, 2011)

Rick said:


> Although I agree with your general concept Lance, in my experience the adaptability of individual plants to survive to blooming is much greater than I think we give them credit for. On the one hand we get a plant in from the wild, and adapt it (or at least a small percentage of the group) to a set of GH conditions. How many of these conditions are the same to start with?
> 
> Then you have people growing in moss, CHC, diatomite, bark, rubber tires, semi hydro, .......to the point where it becomes apparent that none of these make a difference anyway. Then you have MSU, Jack's, Jungle green, blood meal, bonemeal, limestone and oyster shell, no supplementation at all.......and they still grow ok. Then they water with DI, RO, Nashville tap, Chicago tap, Los Angeles tap..... and they still survive. Pots, baskets, plastic clay wood.
> 
> ...




I'm not talking about short term adaptability where a plant can surrvive less than it's optimal conditions. i'm talking about evolution over a lot of generations that effects the species population as a whole. 

Granted you can take plants that normally exist in full sun and grow them in shaded conditions. They continue to grow and flower and can reproduce sexually. BUT the flower form does not determine which plant will survive to out produce the others. The plant that survives longer will impart more of it's genetic traits into the population over the time of evolution. One plant that came from the sunny environment may have had the sexiest flower but that flower does nothing to keep the individual reproductive plant living on to reproduce future generations. The plant that adapts vegetativly to the new conditions, the best, will be the evolution model of the future.

I'm thinking the flower is more of a "tie breaker" in the game of evolution. When two plants have equal vegetative genetic abilities the one with the sexiest flower will attract the first pollinator. But then on the other hand why would that pollinator not also stop at the less attractive flower?


----------



## Rick (May 30, 2011)

gonewild said:


> I'm thinking the flower is more of a "tie breaker" in the game of evolution. When two plants have equal vegetative genetic abilities the one with the sexiest flower will attract the first pollinator. But then on the other hand why would that pollinator not also stop at the less attractive flower?



Well for plants that don't want to be selfed, it helps to not be toooo much better looking than your neighbor (which is likely to be related to you anyway). Compared to dandelions I think orchid seed dispersal is relatively poor. 

Since most orchids are deceptive pollinators, and pollination odds depend on a lot of moving parts working in almost perfection, you got to be at the top of your game. Most pollinators are getting nothing in return for their efforts, so once they figure out they are getting screwed for nothing why bother going to another flower. So which scams work the best? You've got to be the best, and constantly improve to keep the scam working. Otherwise there's plenty of other places to go that would probably be more productive anyway.

That probably brings up a more important point on in or out of wild plants.

We've been putting everything into the context of surviving different physical/chemical hardships, but what may be the biggest factor in jungle life is competition and other inter organism relationships.

Jungle whether is warm humid and stable, thats why everyone wants to live there. But then it's nutrient impoverished, everybody starving. So you develop a myriad of social relationships to share the resources. All those relationships are broken when you move to NYCity!! You get your own place, a private trainer, and live on a diet of donuts and fillet mignon.


----------



## gonewild (May 30, 2011)

Rick said:


> Since most orchids are deceptive pollinators, and pollination odds depend on a lot of moving parts working in almost perfection, you got to be at the top of your game. Most pollinators are getting nothing in return for their efforts, so once they figure out they are getting screwed for nothing why bother going to another flower. So which scams work the best? You've got to be the best, and constantly improve to keep the scam working. Otherwise there's plenty of other places to go that would probably be more productive anyway.



That sounds kind of like the nightly news.



> That probably brings up a more important point on in or out of wild plants.
> 
> We've been putting everything into the context of surviving different physical/chemical hardships, but what may be the biggest factor in jungle life is competition and other inter organism relationships.



This is exactly what I'm trying to point out, competition and other inter organism relationships causes plants to constantly evolve to compete. And I think the vegetative part of the plants evolution contributes more to this survival than the flower.



> Jungle whether is warm humid and stable, thats why everyone wants to live there. But then it's nutrient impoverished, everybody starving. So you develop a myriad of social relationships to share the resources. All those relationships are broken when you move to NYCity!! You get your own place, a private trainer, and live on a diet of donuts and fillet mignon.



And long term survival in NYCity requires you to be a big colorful sexy flower that can never return to the jungle. :rollhappy:

So for orchids to survive in the Jungle they need to evolve genetically strong and to survive in cultivation the need to be genetically beautiful.


----------



## Rick (May 30, 2011)

So how do plants compete (and communicate) their vegetative superiority into the next generation with so-so run of the mill flowers?

I guess if every one in the village is poor, run down, and on their last leg, then maybe anyone advertising at all has got to be a hottie? I don't think its that much different than human culture (except where they have arranged marriages). The girls in the village all compete against each other to out beauty there friends, customizing there cloths, accentuating whatever physical assets they have to attract a boy. Once attracted and hooked, time is spent to look into more practical aspects of careers, cooking and budgeting. 

But you can see from the math that for all the blowing a going on "line-bred monsters", the majority of award winners aren't really that much out of the ordinary. It's been a while since I heard about anyone trying to put slipper orchids back in the wild. Some Thai botanical gardens seem to do OK on their protected grounds. Does Ecuagenera try any transplants? I think most of the losses in Borneo projects were from poaching and not death. 

Actually my recent notions of orchid nutrition are leaning more and more in this direction for more successful culture. Most of us started off with "weakly weekly" with commercial balanced fertilizers. I'm seriously starting to investigate into more reductions of certain components (no more donuts, and tofu instead of fillet mignon).

When I worked in herps at the zoo, I developed a "productivity" index (numbers of animals produced + numbers of animals sold / numbers of animals died + numbers of animals purchased). In simple terms we were a net consumer or producer of animals ( in this case herps). When I started as supervisor that value was less than 1 (net consumer), by the time I left it was 2 or 3 (definite producer). Originally, we chronically purchased animals we had neither the resources or knowledge to maintain let alone reproduce. We developed an attitude that as a zoo it was not morally correct for us to collect organisms with no potential to propagate (that's what museums do). Secondly it was not morally right for us to purchase pie in the sky husbandry long shots without proper infrastructure or knowledge. Thirdly every organism counted equally and had to pull its weight either in the market place or as an education piece (or both). We propagated both exotics and natives. I sold poison dart frogs into the pet trade, cobras and pythons to other zoos, and released rattlesnakes and copperheads back into the wild (gotta restock for those rattlesnake roundups you knowoke:oke I was like the Johny Appleseed of herps for a few years. Our attendance went up, our exhibitry was rated as some of the best in the country, we paid for our own air conditioning, mortality dropped even more. Some of our keepers, with barely high school degrees, were presenting papers for breeding New Guinea pythons and sub Saharan spiny tail agamas. In a two year period we went from consuming hundreds to producing hundreds of various African/Madagascan chameleon species.

Ah the glory days. Now we're just a bunch of pessimistic old slobs waiting for the world to die. 

I don't know if this whole conversation even has anything to do with the original question anymore.


----------



## Heather (May 30, 2011)

Rick, whether or not it does, you've done some cool-ass stuff in your life. Love these threads lately - super duper interesting!


----------



## Braem (May 31, 2011)

Ozpaph said:


> Of course, but 'judging criteria' influences line breeding and shifts the Bell curve of natural variance in the cultivated species toward certain characteristics.


Agree ... but those criteria are purely subjective and have nothing to do with the variety in nature - and that variety is necessary to keep a species healthy


----------



## Braem (May 31, 2011)

poozcard said:


> Roth found you believe that linebreds are not species anymore.
> http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showpost.php?p=290880&postcount=47
> 
> Could you please kindly explain this contradiction?
> Thank you.


There is a misunderstanding here ... As far as I can remember, I never claimed that line-bred species are no longer species ... (and if I have, that was a mistake).


----------



## paphioboy (May 31, 2011)

wow. Its amazing what the people on ST do for a living...


----------



## poozcard (May 31, 2011)

Braem said:


> There is a misunderstanding here ... As far as I can remember, I never claimed that line-bred species are no longer species ... (and if I have, that was a mistake).



Noted.
Thank you.


----------



## Rick (May 31, 2011)

At least 1 flaw in the analysis of the award data base is knowing how many generations of line breeding were incurred for the largest entry. Since there have been periodic infusions of wild stock over the last 2 centuries, it is possible that the record flowers may be from a wild plant (although not likely).


Hey Wasn't rothschildianum 'Rex' a wild import (and not a line bred)?


----------



## poozcard (May 31, 2011)

There is a long discussion in this topic.
In case someone would like to take a break.
My friend just visited Thailand west border forest and shared some of photos here: http://www.pantip.com/cafe/jatujak/topic/J10626242/J10626242.html


----------



## Braem (May 31, 2011)

Rick said:


> I don't think you said that either Guido. But that was inferred or questioned by others, and so I used the awards records simply as a data base to see if I could find a measurable difference in (at least overall flower size) line bred vs wild plants to support that hypothesis.
> 
> At least 1 flaw in the analysis of the award data base is knowing how many generations of line breeding were incurred for the largest entry. Since there have been periodic infusions of wild stock over the last 2 centuries, it is possible that the record flowers may be from a wild plant (although not likely).


I think the Paph. delenatii case is a good example of what happens in line breeding. There was NO variation at all. I am not saying that this will be the case with all species ... but it is interesting to note.


----------



## paphioboy (May 31, 2011)

poozcard said:


> There is a long discussion in this topic.
> In case someone would like to take a break.
> My friend just visited Thailand west border forest and shared some of photos here: http://www.pantip.com/cafe/jatujak/topic/J10626242/J10626242.html



Wow... Thanks for sharing..  Anybody knows what the terrestrial with spotted leaves is? I was thinking Nephelaphyllum, but the flower doesn't look typical...


----------



## valenzino (May 31, 2011)

paphioboy said:


> Wow... Thanks for sharing..  Anybody knows what the terrestrial with spotted leaves is? I was thinking Nephelaphyllum, but the flower doesn't look typical...



Its Sirindhornia mirabilis,nice leaved terrestrial...like it.
Another link about it here:

http://www.orchidswiki.com/t867-sirindhornia-mirabilis-ha-pedersen-suksathan


----------



## callosum (May 31, 2011)

*wild hybrid*

picture no 39 40 41 42 are wild hybrid of Sirindhonias


----------



## Rick (May 31, 2011)

Braem said:


> I think the Paph. delenatii case is a good example of what happens in line breeding. There was NO variation at all. I am not saying that this will be the case with all species ... but it is interesting to note.



Well the extreme plant ("Hat trick") was 38% bigger than the normal wild range (at least for that in Cribb's book). That would probably be statistically significant from norm. But the mean of all awarded plants is right on the upper edge of wild normal range (no variation).

From my limited experience in taking plants to judging, judges don't really want to consider a plant for scoring at all if its not at least at the top edge of the metrics for the taxanomic description.

Given that awards are only for the exceptional plants there must be 95% more in collections that aren't even close to being outside of the taxonomic (normal) description.


----------



## poozcard (May 31, 2011)

Rick said:


> Given that awards are only for the exceptional plants there must be 95% more in collections that aren't even close to being outside of the taxonomic (normal) description.



Good point!
Then what should taxonomy do?
1. Making description for those majority in the middle.
2. Making description for those majority in the middle + remark for those minority on the edge


----------



## Rick (May 31, 2011)

poozcard said:


> Good point!
> Then what should taxonomy do?
> 1. Making description for those majority in the middle.
> 2. Making description for those majority in the middle + remark for those minority on the edge



Now this is my opinion (which I know is not universally shared).

It should reflect the description representing 90 to 95% of the population as a whole.

Such descriptions should include geographic range and OPTIMALLY should include pollinator description.

Over the years there are still valid names for plants that are based on single observations (not bell shaped curves of population characteristics). There are names being held for plants with unknown or fraudulent geographic range info. Very few pollinators for paphs are known at the specific level.

I guess my continuous harping on the pollinator deal is that (as you have discovered) there is no one metric that completely defines a species Paph. The potential array of influential characters that we know about is huge, and we only use a very limited sensual array to understand paph flowers. It is well known that insects see AND smell things differently than we do. So rather than trying to constantly come up with a new metric to measure, just use the bugs as a "black box" for telling us what the specific plants are. 

It's not unlike the toxicology business I'm in now. We get effluents in from factory waste treatment plants. There are hundreds or thousands of potential toxic chemicals in any given sample. Some you know, because they are put in intact. Some are the byproducts of the treatment plant. To measure for every single chemical is an astronomical project that is very expensive, but in our lab we put water fleas and minnows into the water samples and see if they live or die. Grow or reproduce. If they do OK we don't care whats in the water (its safe). They are biological black boxes that assess the total impact of the chemistry of the water. If they are impaired that justifies the time and $$ to start investigating the cause by analytical chemistry.

Anyway cost and effort does factor into taxonomy. Who has the time, strength, and money to live in the jungles of Thailand or Borneo for months on end? Jungle work can also be very dangerous too. Disease, snakes, tigers, elephants, head hunters, terrorists, bandits, orchid collectors (back in the 1800's orchid collectors would fight and kill each other in the forests for cutthroat business).

Things are a lot different now with planes/helicopters, medicines, digital cameras, GPS.... But travel logistics are still very difficult and expensive. For as much as we've shrunk the world, it's surprising how big it still is when you get in the forests.

So I guess the question is, how much is it worth it to you to know exactly where one plant starts and where a different one takes over?


----------



## Braem (Jun 1, 2011)

Ok Rick, but let me clarify a few things:

1) in taxonomy, the rule of priority prevails, thus if one has a new plant (even one), one describes ... if one waits until one has seen 90 to 95% of the population, there will never be any descriptions.

2) the geographic range of the species is not always known ... one could give the geographical details of the population from where the plant was taken.

3) even if you put these requirements in the rules, you can not do anything about poeple "saying less than the truth". I would see that in 90% of the descriptions of orchids, the true origin was not given.

4) let me do the Latin "thing" to clarify. The rules state that you need a Latin diagnosis, and that you have to include the origin of the type specimen. The rules do not say that the Latin diagnosis must be in good Latin grammar, and do not say that you can't be mistaken (or lie) about the origin of the plant. In both cases, the description remains valid and effective.

And I didn't even start with the pollinator issue .... do I need to recall the Angraecum sesquipedale saga?


----------



## Rick (Jun 1, 2011)

Braem said:


> Ok Rick, but let me clarify a few things:
> 
> 1) in taxonomy, the rule of priority prevails, thus if one has a new plant (even one), one describes ... if one waits until one has seen 90 to 95% of the population, there will never be any descriptions.
> 
> ...



I can thouroghly relate to your points Guido. It's all we can, to do what we can, with what we have.

The Angraecum issue is interesting, and kind of relates to my last points about time/expense/ and technology.

Who had the time and money to sit in a tree in a Madagascan jungle for days or months on end to witness a moth visit. Now with motion detector miniture photo equipment (technology Darwin didn't have 100 years ago), robot does survey, while biologist on ground in tent drinking coffee. Relative cost compared to 1905 is fractional.

For some applications you can use sticky traps near or on the flowers to trap bugs. This doesn't neccesarily tell which species are actually moving pollen versus just visiting the flower for fun. Anyway did you have a chance to look up the Bansiger paper. I'm sure that study wasn't cheap, but its got good ideas for slippers.


----------



## Rick (Jun 1, 2011)

in taxonomy, the rule of priority prevails, thus if one has a new plant (even one), one describes ... if one waits until one has seen 90 to 95% of the population, there will never be any descriptions.

How do you know if a single plant is new, or just a variant within a population unless you conduct a population survey?

The balance between the two extremes is the crux of the issue. There has always been a huge race for the "new species" and now we are covered up with tons of useless names.

There is a similar debate among fisheries biologists as to what constitutes a reasonable sample size to describe characters of a population. Some go as low as 50 fish some as high as 1000. Consensus is around 100. So there is a lot of tedious measuring every time I go in the field to sample, but I get a more accurate profile of the population condition, and not just the accidents.


----------



## poozcard (Jun 1, 2011)

I read some text from Cribb 1988. He mentioned that some taxonomists believe that Paph and Phrag are fly-pollinated while Cyp is bee-pollinated.

Early this year, I found 3 times this one stuck in the pouch of exuls.







Questions:

1. Is it bee or fly?
2. Why it die in the pouch?
3. Is it really a pollinator of exul?


----------



## Erythrone (Jun 1, 2011)

2 wings (1 pair): diptera (fly relatives)

Bees, hornet, bumblebees and relatives: 4 wings (2 pairs). 

Not sure what you insect is... Seems to be a hymenoptera.... but wich one?


----------



## Braem (Jun 1, 2011)

Rick said:


> I can thouroghly relate to your points Guido. It's all we can, to do what we can, with what we have.
> 
> The Angraecum issue is interesting, and kind of relates to my last points about time/expense/ and technology.
> 
> ...


Well having been in the tropics myself, I tell you that I won't sit and wait for a bug to come by.


----------



## Braem (Jun 1, 2011)

poozcard said:


> I read some text from Cribb 1988. He mentioned that some taxonomists believe that Paph and Phrag are fly-pollinated while Cyp is bee-pollinated.
> 
> Early this year, I found 3 times this one stuck in the pouch of exuls.
> 
> ...


That seems to be a wasp of some kind ... and the fact that is was in the pouch does NOT prove that it is the pollinator.


----------



## poozcard (Jun 1, 2011)

Braem said:


> Well having been in the tropics myself, I tell you that I won't sit and wait for a bug to come by.




Come to thailand next time Prof.Braem

The paph site is not far from the famous beach of Krabi/Phuket/Phangna

:clap::clap::clap:


----------



## poozcard (Jun 1, 2011)

Braem said:


> That seems to be a wasp of some kind ... and the fact that is was in the pouch does NOT prove that it is the pollinator.



I agree.
It might die in the pouch because it was stuck as the 2 holes on both sides of staminode are too narrow.


----------



## poozcard (Jun 1, 2011)

May I share some more photos.

We went to Krabi, hometown of Paph.exul.
the intention was to see exul in its natural habitat.
we have been here last year in March. at that time, we focused on Paph.leucochilum mainly.

this time, we was lucky. we found a lot of exul insitu.
most of them are located quite high from sea water level, about 15-30 m up.
the reason might be the one that grow lower has been collected. 


let's see.









leucochilum





then exul
can find?















fishermen






more exuls


----------



## poozcard (Jun 1, 2011)

another healty one







only one in bloom during the trip
paph.niveum










Staurochidlus sp.





Cymbidium aloifolium





exul








end with this pic


----------



## poozcard (Jun 1, 2011)

Photos were taken by telephoto lens + zoom in computure.
Sorry for low quality picture.

All island paphs are found at very high level.
You may need some cranes to hang you in a basket to take a photo closely.

Btw, I found the tropic is quite peaceful.
If someone fund me for fly/bee watching, I would love to.


----------



## Marc (Jun 1, 2011)

Don't feel sorry for the quality of the pictures they are great. Seeing pictures of orchids in their natural habitat is always a treat.

No one is expecting studio quality shots


----------



## goldenrose (Jun 1, 2011)

Thanks for the tour! :clap::clap::clap:
I agree with Marc, pics are just fine!


----------



## SlipperFan (Jun 1, 2011)

Your photos are just fine, Poozcard! I love the river photos. What river is it? It reminds me of the Li River in China, with its karst formations.


----------



## poozcard (Jun 1, 2011)

SlipperFan said:


> Your photos are just fine, Poozcard! I love the river photos. What river is it? It reminds me of the Li River in China, with its karst formations.



It is a part of Andaman sea, facing Indian Ocean.
Krabi province, Thailand, hometown of exul, leuco, niveum.


----------



## SlipperFan (Jun 1, 2011)

poozcard said:


> It is a part of Andaman sea, facing Indian Ocean.
> Krabi province, Thailand, hometown of exul, leuco, niveum.



Got it! Thanks. It is beautiful county.


----------



## Rick (Jun 1, 2011)

I like those shots. Seeing how exposed these plants are, people should appreciate how bright and hot this species can take it. :clap:

Poozcard you can't scale those cliffs by handoke:oke:


----------



## poozcard (Jun 2, 2011)

leuco/niveum/exul are found together in the same area as you may have seen.
This makes natural hybrids between leuco and niveum as they both are blooming in the same period.
H.Koopowitz called it Paph. x greyi.

This ecology is special.
Day temp rises up to 35-40c while night time is about 27-30c
Windy but very high humidity.

Each small cilff island is separated by sea water which sometimes makes plants from each island distinct from the island next to.
It might be because the pollinator could not travel around under strong wind.


----------



## valenzino (Jun 2, 2011)

poozcard said:


> leuco/niveum/exul are found together in the same area as you may have seen.
> This makes natural hybrids between leuco and niveum as they both are blooming in the same period.
> H.Koopowitz called it Paph. x greyi.
> 
> ...




Nice photos,and also thanks for the interesting climatic data!


----------



## Rick (Jun 2, 2011)

poozcard said:


> Each small cilff island is separated by sea water which sometimes makes plants from each island distinct from the island next to.
> It might be because the pollinator could not travel around under strong wind.



This is an astute observation Poozcard, but generally a strong wind causes what would normally be small home range flying insects to get dispersed farther than they would if it was their choice.

Another possibility to consider with pollinator species is just their normal home range size.

Some species are territorial and just don't travel very far regardless how strong the wind is. Some species are more nomadic, and probably more susceptible to wind.

In college I looked at bee pollinators of plants in the desert. There were local native bees that were territorial, and only had a handful of bushes in their territory that they tended intensely (increasing odds of self pollination, and lots of small patches of local plant variants). The introduction of European honey bees, which are colonial, travel large distances, and will go to just about any flower they come across) where homogenizing the plant populations by spreading pollen from all the clumps of bushes that all used to be guarded by the territorial native bees.


----------



## NYEric (Jun 2, 2011)

Wow! this thread exploded. Thanx for the photos and info everyone.


----------



## gonewild (Jun 2, 2011)

Rick said:


> This is an astute observation Poozcard, but generally a strong wind causes what would normally be small home range flying insects to get dispersed farther than they would if it was their choice.




Maybe the pollinators don't fly?


----------



## gonewild (Jun 2, 2011)

In this environment on these cliffs what is more important to the evolution of the species, the flower form or the strength of vegetation?


----------



## Rick (Jun 2, 2011)

gonewild said:


> Maybe the pollinators don't fly?



That would be very special for a paph. Especially one that looks so close to insigne, villosum, and gratrixianum.

The bug you found in the pouch was a winged insect wasn't it?

The hover flies I've seen are strong /fast fliers. Most of them look like wasps. 

Better get your repeling gear ready Poozcard!!!


----------



## Rick (Jun 2, 2011)

gonewild said:


> In this environment on these cliffs what is more important to the evolution of the species, the flower form or the strength of vegetation?



Floral form.

Note 3 other paph species with 2 separate growth habits. Brachy and Paph subgenera plant habits.

But what keeps them from getting hybridized into 1 homogenous paph species? If there wasn't enough differnce in floral form the pollinators would randomly hit all three species and mix them all up (pollinators don't look at leaves to tell a paph from a brachy).

It's not illogical that all paphio types all came from a basic widespread barbigerum ancestor. Wind dispersal of seed may have pushed this ancestor (or maybe by then a version of insigne) onto Krabi. Those with exposure tolerance survived and those that didn't are dead. But without pollinator recognition and isolation those early survivors would eventually die out and the toughness not passed on to survivng generations.

On the one hand I do have microhabitat differences in my GH from one side to another, but on the other hand its only 12X12 so how much can I get. I grow both insigne and exul (not on the same bench though). But general plant tolerance overlaps a fair amount. Both grow on limestone cliffs one just cooler than the other.

Evolution is based on the sum of all environmental presures, which include both the abiotic and biotic influences. Yes you would need a tough insigne to live on Krabi, but once it got there, why didn't the flower stay as insigne instead of drifting to the form of exul? Pollinator recognition?


----------



## gonewild (Jun 2, 2011)

Rick said:


> Floral form.
> 
> Note 3 other paph species with 2 separate growth habits. Brachy and Paph subgenera plant habits.
> 
> But what keeps them from getting hybridized into 1 homogenous paph species? If there wasn't enough differnce in floral form the pollinators would randomly hit all three species and mix them all up (pollinators don't look at leaves to tell a paph from a brachy).



Maybe each species blooms at different seasonal periods so the two species are not in flower at the same time?


----------



## poozcard (Jun 2, 2011)

gonewild said:


> In this environment on these cliffs what is more important to the evolution of the species, the flower form or the strength of vegetation?



They are relative bigger when compare with ones those are found in mainland, both the leaves and flowers too.


----------



## poozcard (Jun 2, 2011)

gonewild said:


> Maybe each species blooms at different seasonal periods so the two species are not in flower at the same time?




Agree.
exul blooms during Jan-Feb
niveum+leuco during April-May

So natural hybrid between exul and other 2 there is not seen. I never seen/heard any of it.

Moreover, it may not be the same pollinator.
niveum may have the same pollinator with leuco, but not exul.

Shall we look at the exit door for pollinator getting out from the pouch? There are 2 holes next to staminode/column.
I think the holes are one way by the paphs, to select which insect shoud be a pollinator.


----------



## gonewild (Jun 2, 2011)

Exit holes should be important in looking for the pollinator. Something has to escape alive to spread the pollen.


----------



## Kavanaru (Jun 2, 2011)

Rick said:


> How do you know if a single plant is new, or just a variant within a population unless you conduct a population survey?


 well, that's somethingyou can't always be 100% sure. Normally, a new species is described by someone who is a specialist in that genus/family. However, more often than desired, "new" species are described by anybody (e.g. many sup-species, species, formas, varieties of orchids described by non professional taxonomists). In those cases you end up with the same species having several names. First comes first takes, is basically a golden rule in taxonomy. There are regular revision of families, genus and/or species, in order to alligned this chaos, and the first name given, has prevalence. 

After a revision, you can end up with different sub-species separated into two different species, or different species fused into one single one. So, this makes a second golden rule in taxonomy: revisions of taxonomic groups are needed! (this is where I see most orchid growers in conflict with taxonomy: changes are needed to keep the system "clean", based on new taxonomic information, but horticulturist do not want to change as quick)


----------



## gonewild (Jun 2, 2011)

Kavanaru said:


> (this is where I see most orchid growers in conflict with taxonomy: changes are needed to keep the system "clean", based on new taxonomic information, but horticulturist do not want to change as quick)



Taxonomists get paid to make the changes
and
Horticulturists have to pay to make the changes.


----------



## Kavanaru (Jun 2, 2011)

gonewild said:


> Taxonomists get paid to make the changes
> and
> Horticulturists have to pay to make the changes.



but that's nothing you can say is the fault of the "Taxonomy".
well, neither of the "Taxonomists" nor of the "Horticulturists"...


----------



## gonewild (Jun 2, 2011)

Kavanaru said:


> but that's nothing you can say is the fault of the "Taxonomy".
> well, neither of the "Taxonomists" nor of the "Horticulturists"...



No it's no ones fault just a fact of life.

Taxonomists get pleasure by reorganizing the names so they like to do it and the time spent is a positive reward.

Horticulturists don't like to rewrite labels and learn new names so they don't like name changes and the time spent relabeling is a negative reward.


----------



## Rick (Jun 2, 2011)

gonewild said:


> Maybe each species blooms at different seasonal periods so the two species are not in flower at the same time?



Here's a much better example.

In North Vietnam where Averyanov has spent a lot of time in the forests:

Hanginum: "found in close association with henryanum and tranlienianum"

Micranthum: "found in close association with dianthum, henryanum, hirsuitisimum, malipoense".

Vietnamense: "found in close association with concolor, hirsutisimum, tranlienianum"

Hirsutisimum var esquirolii: "found in close association with dianthum, helenae, henryanum, malipoensis, tranlienianum".

From Cash:
Sukhakulii and calosum colonies found side by side in Thailand.

The physical habitats all the same, some of these groups have very similar foliage characteristics within the assemblages. None of the physical requirements (even down to the microhabitat level) preclude anyone from growing these groups under identical conditions in a GH. There could just be 1 amorphous paph species at any of these sites but they have separated themselves by visual and temporal differences of the floral scape. 

Going back to temporal separation, it is for most species a completely adaptable trait to take care of seasonal variation in pollinators. Ever notice on how our Australian and African members in the southern hemisphere have their species blooming at the opposite time of year of us northern hemisphere? Davids wardii in bloom now (June) when everyone up here was blooming November/December? It's not imposible that the same species of bug for fall blooming P. purpuratum is the same as for spring blooming P calosum, but the shift in seasons is not an adaptation to physical habitat, but a biotic means of not competing for the same pollinators.

Everything is for the pollinators, the veg is just the platform.


----------



## Rick (Jun 2, 2011)

Kavanaru said:


> well, that's somethingyou can't always be 100% sure. Normally, a new species is described by someone who is a specialist in that genus/family. However, more often than desired, "new" species are described by anybody (e.g. many sup-species, species, formas, varieties of orchids described by non professional taxonomists). In those cases you end up with the same species having several names. First comes first takes, is basically a golden rule in taxonomy. There are regular revision of families, genus and/or species, in order to alligned this chaos, and the first name given, has prevalence.
> 
> After a revision, you can end up with different sub-species separated into two different species, or different species fused into one single one. So, this makes a second golden rule in taxonomy: revisions of taxonomic groups are needed! (this is where I see most orchid growers in conflict with taxonomy: changes are needed to keep the system "clean", based on new taxonomic information, but horticulturist do not want to change as quick)



It's not just a a close call or a sneeze, taxonomy based on a single plant is a total crap shoot.

Most of paphs were named before the invention of the steamship, airplane, helicopter, and 4 wheel drive vehicle.
Even more were named before the invention of digital photography.

Many of the plant discoveries were what stood out to the eyes and minds of "gentlemen" explorers, with a commercial view (not a science priority) who fought bravely on foot with no technological support. To them every new mountain pass was a new world, and if it had 2 dots instead of 3 dots on the dorsal, it was different enough to warrant a whole new species.

Also remember no digital record storage, publications, telephones, Google. How many explorers collected stuff from two different adjacent mountains, described and published by 2 different taxonomists in Europe and neither were able to compare notes to see how similar or dissimilar they are?

Talking about revision. We have Garay, that in the 90's revised the name of wilhelminea (named 1930's or 1940's) by going backwards in technology. Resurrecting "gardnerii" from a photo of a 19th century drawing of a single plant!!! Not only was his revision based on the visual interpretation of a single plant, it was done with the knowledge that the geography wasn't even close.


----------



## Rick (Jun 2, 2011)

poozcard said:


> Agree.
> exul blooms during Jan-Feb
> niveum+leuco during April-May
> 
> ...



Yes the size of the exit hole dictates the size of the pollinator.

Need to read:

Pollination of a slippery lady slipper orchid in south-west China: Cypripedium guttatum (Orchidaceae): Botanical Journal of Linnean Society, 2005, 148, pgs 251-264.

Cyp guttatum shared the site with C. flavum, C. tibeticum, and C. yunanensis and all shared blooming times.

A total of ten species of halictid bee species visited C. guttatum flowers, but only 3 where the right size based on the size and position of the exit hole/stigmatic surface to extract pollen, contact the stigma to cause pollination. These were among the smallest of the 10 which were observed visiting flowers of the other two Cyp species, but entered and left without moving pollen.

This paper has detailed measurements of insect thorax size and flower exit holes of all the species involved.

of note also in this paper are the number of non-orchid plant species in bloom that shared the same habitat, and pollinators, but remain different genera (no inter-generic crosses).

I may have to scan this and email electronic to you.


----------



## Braem (Jun 3, 2011)

gonewild said:


> Taxonomists get paid to make the changes
> and
> Horticulturists have to pay to make the changes.


If you say that ... maybe you can tell me where to collect my pay .... I have been doing orchid taxonomy since 1978, and I have to collect my first penny for it.


----------



## poozcard (Jun 3, 2011)

Braem said:


> If you say that ... maybe you can tell me where to collect my pay .... I have been doing orchid taxonomy since 1978, and I have to collect my first penny for it.



:clap::clap:

I just ordered your book recently.
has not arrived yet.

Hope you get some penny from that Prof.

:rollhappy::rollhappy::rollhappy:


----------



## gonewild (Jun 3, 2011)

Braem said:


> If you say that ... maybe you can tell me where to collect my pay .... I have been doing orchid taxonomy since 1978, and I have to collect my first penny for it.



First let me say that I don't have any problem with taxonomists getting paid, so please don't take any offense. 

There are many ways one receives payment, it is not always in the form of money. A round of applause when speaking to a group of people is a form of payment, a "reward". "Brownie points" or credit among your peer group is a form of payment.

Maybe you have not been paid directly for writing a description or reclassifying a species but when you do... you publish it. Once published that work becomes part of your portfolio and adds "value" to your position as a professional. That added and accumulating value allows you to acquire paying jobs based on your history of work.

If you have showed a prospective employer a list of your published work you have received value for that work. If you have ever been compensated for speaking to a group of plant lovers then you have received your "first penny" for your taxonomy work, because without that work why would you be invited to speak of consult?

Again no offense about getting paid. Getting paid is a good thing.


----------



## poozcard (Jun 3, 2011)

gonewild said:


> Exit holes should be important in looking for the pollinator. Something has to escape alive to spread the pollen.



If the exit holes matter, would the hair surrounding the holes matter?

:evil::evil:


----------



## Braem (Jun 3, 2011)

gonewild said:


> First let me say that I don't have any problem with taxonomists getting paid, so please don't take any offense.
> 
> There are many ways one receives payment, it is not always in the form of money. A round of applause when speaking to a group of people is a form of payment, a "reward". "Brownie points" or credit among your peer group is a form of payment.
> 
> ...


There was no offence taken ... don't worry. I was just making clear that true taxonomists do not get academic jobs anymore since the DNA nonsense is on the way.


----------



## gonewild (Jun 3, 2011)

Braem said:


> I was just making clear that true taxonomists do not get academic jobs anymore since the DNA nonsense is on the way.



What a shame, glorious history is coming to an end and the future sucks.


----------



## Braem (Jun 3, 2011)

gonewild said:


> What a shame, glorious history is coming to an end and the future sucks.


Not really, we are not death yet. Slowly but surely, the scientific community realizes that "molecular taxonomy" does not work at the species level and thereunder, and anyone who needs a lab to differentiate between anything above a species should not be doing anything in biology. We will prevail ... by the way, I already said this in 1994 in Fukuoka, but everyone laughed ... now even the statistics people agree that what the "molecular taxonomists" do is nonsense.


----------



## valenzino (Jun 3, 2011)

Braem said:


> Not really, we are not death yet. Slowly but surely, the scientific community realizes that "molecular taxonomy" does not work at the species level and thereunder, and anyone who needs a lab to differentiate between anything above a species should not be doing anything in biology. We will prevail ... by the way, I already said this in 1994 in Fukuoka, but everyone laughed ... now even the statistics people agree that what the "molecular taxonomists" do is nonsense.



Absolutely right,I talked about it after the WOC Miami with S.Daelstrom,and he also explained me how those tests have been made....complete nonsense!!!
The thing itself is already nonsense but there is also "added bullshit" to it....You wanna do DNA test,in their way is simple...just go buy a plant tagged with the name you search and do the test...stupid...if the tag is wrong?Hahaha..they dont matter...they must do DNA test on the original tissue material of the description...they dont do it...And also everyone is doing it with different protocols and so results are different and contrasting :rollhappy:


----------



## Ernie (Jun 3, 2011)

In grad school, I did a project where I selectively "proved" various catfish genera lie outside the order Siluriformes (the catfishes) simply by varying the genes under consideration and the details of my analyses. Did a paper and presentation and angered a most of the faculty in attendance, but I very validly demonstrated my point, so I got great marks. :evil: 

Simply, very few humans understand molecular evolution well enough to use it intelligently in a taxonomic analysis. Drink a couple pitchers with Kevin de Quieroz and you'll understand.

And the knowledge from one group can't be used on another. A gene that someone claims is good for mammals at the family level would not be good for lizards at the same level...


----------



## poozcard (Jun 3, 2011)

http://topicstock.pantip.com/jatujak/topicstock/2006/03/J4226031/J4226031.html

I found this old thread from Thai forum written in year 2006.
This show how the fly find his way out from the pouch.


----------



## Braem (Jun 4, 2011)

Ernie said:


> In grad school, I did a project where I selectively "proved" various catfish genera lie outside the order Siluriformes (the catfishes) simply by varying the genes under consideration and the details of my analyses. Did a paper and presentation and angered a most of the faculty in attendance, but I very validly demonstrated my point, so I got great marks. :evil:
> 
> Simply, very few humans understand molecular evolution well enough to use it intelligently in a taxonomic analysis. Drink a couple pitchers with Kevin de Quieroz and you'll understand.
> 
> And the knowledge from one group can't be used on another. A gene that someone claims is good for mammals at the family level would not be good for lizards at the same level...


Again ... don't mix gators with primates ... Animals are not plants. Secondly, there are two scientifically renowned papers that prove that the statistical packages used in the "molecular taxonomy game" give random results. Thirdly, the "molecular taxonomists" leave out all characteristics that occur only once (because camputer rogrammes can't deal with anything they can't compare) ... etc etc. (That is why Mark Chase - the Don of the molecular taxonomist gang wants all monospecific genera revoked [except for those he described himself, of course])
Molecular taxonomy in orchids below the genus level is nonsense ... it is at simple as that. And above that level, one requires two eyes and good sense and a good training as a botanist.


----------



## Ernie (Jun 4, 2011)

Braem said:


> Again ... don't mix gators with primates ... Animals are not plants. Secondly, there are two scientifically renowned papers that prove that the statistical packages used in the "molecular taxonomy game" give random results. Thirdly, the "molecular taxonomists" leave out all characteristics that occur only once (because camputer rogrammes can't deal with anything they can't compare) ... etc etc. (That is why Mark Chase - the Don of the molecular taxonomist gang wants all monospecific genera revoked [except for those he described himself, of course])
> Molecular taxonomy in orchids below the genus level is nonsense ... it is at simple as that. And above that level, one requires two eyes and good sense and a good training as a botanist.



You and I are in agreement. 

You got my point about different taxa. I've seen lizard people say 'fish folks said 18s rRNA works at the XXX level, so we chose the same region for our analysis at that level'. BS! 

I think I met Doug Soltis (one of Mark's collaborators) at a Willi Hennig meeting? I know I at least heard him speak once or twice. Agree with your assessment. 

I do believe, at some point in probably in the distant future, molecules will be more useful, but at the moment, we don't have the understanding and technology to utilize them properly and intelligently.


----------



## Rick (Jun 11, 2011)

poozcard said:


> I read some text from Cribb 1988. He mentioned that some taxonomists believe that Paph and Phrag are fly-pollinated while Cyp is bee-pollinated.
> 
> Early this year, I found 3 times this one stuck in the pouch of exuls.
> 
> ...



Compare this insect to the hover fly Ocyptamus antiphales on pg 364 of June 2011 Orchids magazine that pollinates phrag pearcei in Ecuador. Very similar.


----------



## Braem (Jun 11, 2011)

Rick said:


> Compare this insect to the hover fly Ocyptamus antiphales on pg 364 of June 2011 Orchids magazine that pollinates phrag pearcei in Ecuador. Very similar.


That was a wild guess ... the only Paph we know for sure to be fly pollinated is rothschildianum ... and I still maintain that the picture here looks very much like a wasp.


----------



## Rick (Jun 11, 2011)

Braem said:


> That was a wild guess ... the only Paph we know for sure to be fly pollinated is rothschildianum ... and I still maintain that the picture here looks very much like a wasp.



Ecuador is a whole continent away from Krabi. No reason to suspect that the pollinator for Phrag pearcei is the same species as the bug that got trapped in the pouch of an exul in another country not even the same as its country of origin.

Point is that the insect pollinator for Phrag peacei is positively identified as a hover fly of a particular genus that looks almost identical to the photo of the insect extracted from Poozcard's exul. Not a wasp despite how close it looks like a small black wasp.

Although poozcard's insect is in poor condition and somewhat twisted, I can only see 1 pair of wings, and as previously noted, wasps have 2 good pairs of wings.


----------



## Roth (Jun 11, 2011)

Actually some species seem to have very specific pollinators anyway. Callosum, sukhakhulii and appletonianum grow together in the wild, yet callosum x appletonianum has been found in many instances. No wild hybrids of sukhakhulii has ever been found, despite millions of wild collected plants over the decades for pot plant trade 

sukhakhuli album has never been found in the wild, only aureum 'Paleface', callosum album, only once for the type callosum, the sublaeve has been found two times in Thailand, one in Vietnam, appletonianum album very few times, not more than 5 anyway (and two were cerveranum album), barbatum apparently once during the XIXth century, and once about 15 years ago, villosum album, only in Vietnam populations of villosum, and very few times, hennissianum album, fowliei album, never in the wild for those, they appeared in cultivation from seed, despite huge colonies of all of those species. All plants we know are art prop plants issued from those.


----------



## Rick (Jun 11, 2011)

Roth said:


> Actually some species seem to have very specific pollinators anyway. Callosum, sukhakhulii and appletonianum grow together in the wild, yet callosum x appletonianum has been found in many instances. No wild hybrids of sukhakhulii has ever been found, despite millions of wild collected plants over the decades for pot plant trade



This was my point using other examples.


----------



## Rick (Jun 12, 2011)

Braem said:


> the only Paph we know for sure to be fly pollinated is rothschildianum



I guess based on Attwood 1985

But I just spent 15 minutes on Google

Banziger published 2 papers in 2002 and 1996 documenting (hover fly) pollinators for:
bellatulum
callosum
parishii
villosum

Shi et al in 2007 and 2008 published on hover fly pollinators for:

barbigerum
dianthum

Interestingly the primary fly species for barbigerum and dianthum is the same (Episyrphus balteatus) although reportedly utilized in different ways.

I haven't been able to obtain the text for Banziger 2002, but the 1996 paper on villosum indicates 3 primary species Episyrphus alternans, Syrphus fulvifacies, and Betasyrphus serarius. The other 3 species not listed in the abstract I had access too. 


Three genera of Syrphid species makes for lots of options.

The basic staminode structure of exul is similar to that of barbigerum and villosum, so maybe we could be looking for a flower fly of the genus Episyrphus for the exul pollinator??


----------



## Braem (Jun 13, 2011)

Yes ... possibly ... but ther is always the problem of establishing whether a visitor is really the pollinator. I will accept a pollinator if I see pollen on the body of the beast.


----------



## valenzino (Jun 13, 2011)

Roth said:


> Actually some species seem to have very specific pollinators anyway. Callosum, sukhakhulii and appletonianum grow together in the wild, yet callosum x appletonianum has been found in many instances. No wild hybrids of sukhakhulii has ever been found, despite millions of wild collected plants over the decades for pot plant trade....



One wild hybrid of sukhakulii x appletonianum exists found recently.





Uploaded with ImageShack.us

A single plant in middle of maany suk.


----------



## Rick (Jun 13, 2011)

Braem said:


> Yes ... possibly ... but ther is always the problem of establishing whether a visitor is really the pollinator. I will accept a pollinator if I see pollen on the body of the beast.



The above mentioned articles are studies based on pollen aquisition, and not just visitation. In the barbigerum paper there is a table that counts total visits by all species, and break's down succesful and unseccesful aquisiton of pollen.

In fact references moved from one paper to the other indicate that observations were carried on to revisitation, pollination, and determination of fruit set rates.

The Shi et al 2008 paper was a downloadable pdf. You should check it out.


----------



## Braem (Jun 13, 2011)

Rick said:


> The above mentioned articles are studies based on pollen aquisition, and not just visitation. In the barbigerum paper there is a table that counts total visits by all species, and break's down succesful and unseccesful aquisiton of pollen.
> 
> In fact references moved from one paper to the other indicate that observations were carried on to revisitation, pollination, and determination of fruit set rates.
> 
> The Shi et al 2008 paper was a downloadable pdf. You should check it out.


Rick, thank you ... I will check this out ... it is good if we know what the pollinators are.


----------



## Rick (Jun 13, 2011)

http://lseb.ibcas.ac.cn/oldzjxx/luoyb/PDF/83.pdf

Try this link


----------



## Ernie (Jun 13, 2011)

Rick said:


> http://lseb.ibcas.ac.cn/oldzjxx/luoyb/PDF/83.pdf
> 
> Try this link



That's my kind of casual reading.  Thanks for posting the link.


----------



## Rick (Jun 13, 2011)

Ernie said:


> That's my kind of casual reading.  Thanks for posting the link.



Ernie

Even though I tracked down the Banziger citations separately on Google, they all apear in this document too.

I was only able to look at one abstract (the villosum work). I think everything else is esentially the "pay per view" version. See if you have access to some of the other papers.


----------



## Ernie (Jun 13, 2011)

Will see if UCF holds subscriptions to the journals...


----------

