# Paph virens



## Rick (Feb 10, 2013)

Staminode is a bit out of alignment, but a pretty flower none the less.


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## Spaph (Feb 10, 2013)

Nice blooming, the foliage of these is quite something as well right?


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## Evergreen (Feb 10, 2013)

Nice!


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## Rick (Feb 10, 2013)

Spaph said:


> Nice blooming, the foliage of these is quite something as well right?



Looks just like callosum or sukhakulii. Nothing really different.


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## wjs2nd (Feb 10, 2013)

Beautiful bloom.


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## papheteer (Feb 10, 2013)

I haven't seen that one before! Nice one! Looks hard to grow


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## SlipperFan (Feb 10, 2013)

Nice.


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## Ozpaph (Feb 10, 2013)

i haven't seen many of these - thanks.


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## Rick (Feb 10, 2013)

papheteer said:


> I haven't seen that one before! Nice one! Looks hard to grow



There's some debate that they are a variety of Paph javanica (from Borneo).

I did loose my first one several years ago. Boomed and busted, but never bloomed.

I got this one from Tom Kalina about a year or so ago, and its been growing (and bloomed) Ok.


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## The Orchid Boy (Feb 10, 2013)

I like the interesting color combinations.


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## The Mutant (Feb 11, 2013)

Rick said:


> Looks just like callosum or sukhakulii. Nothing really different.


The foliage of my callosum and sukhakulii doesn't look the same... 

Nice Paph you've got there, though.


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## Rick (Feb 11, 2013)

The Mutant said:


> The foliage of my callosum and sukhakulii doesn't look the same...



Callosum is highly variable and even suk has some variation from plant to plant.

But if you just have a couple plants from the same sources, and really look hard I'm sure you could tell them apart. But if you check out a lot of callosums (from different sources), and put them all on the same table at once, you'd probably think you are looking at half a dozen different species.

To me its kind of like Coke vs Pepsi. I can't tell the difference, but some people say they can tell blindfolded!


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## GuRu (Feb 11, 2013)

Rick said:


> There's some debate that they are a variety of Paph javanica (from Borneo).


Kew says P. virens is a synonym. The accepted name is Paph javanicum P.javanicum and according to Kew is even P. javanicum var. virens a synonym.
Yours is a lovely flower - congrats !


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## Rick (Feb 11, 2013)

GuRu said:


> Kew says P. virens is a synonym. The accepted name is Paph javanicum P.javanicum and according to Kew is even P. javanicum var. virens a synonym.
> Yours is a lovely flower - congrats !



Thanks

I took it down to the judging center (wonky stam and all) just to get a read on that issue. In AOS it showed up as javanica var virens.

There's definitely a differnce in color between the forms from Borneo and the ones from the rest of the range.

I'll leave the virens on the label as a way of tracking the source (local??)


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## SlipperKing (Feb 12, 2013)

Nice clone to have in your collection Rick


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## emydura (Feb 12, 2013)

Nice one Rick. Not commonly seen.



GuRu said:


> Kew says P. virens is a synonym. The accepted name is Paph javanicum P.javanicum and according to Kew is even P. javanicum var. virens a synonym.
> Yours is a lovely flower - congrats !



I was reading the Oct-Dec Orchid Digest where Harold Koopowitz has an updated annotated checklist of Paphs. In this he names numerous new species, many of which I have never heard of. But for virens he says "virens falls comfortably into the concept of P. javanicum. Differences seem to be so small that it hardly seems useful to maintain them as different varieties".


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## JPMC (Feb 12, 2013)

I think that the plant sold to me as Paphiopedilum sugiyamanum (http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28492) is really javanicum (like yours). At least to my eyes there is very little difference. That said, a plant sold to me a javanicum perished very quickly under the same conditions that my alleged sugiyamanum.


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## NYEric (Feb 13, 2013)

Did the petals on the "sugiyamanum" ever reflex bask? You people are killing me with these nice non-Parvi species plants!


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## JPMC (Feb 13, 2013)

NYEric said:


> Did the petals on the "sugiyamanum" ever reflex bask? You people are killing me with these nice non-Parvi species plants!



Yes, they did.


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## Leo Schordje (Feb 14, 2013)

In the old days, back when I was just learning about paphs, there were 3 recognized species that were later group together by Cribb as Paph javanicum. All three were so similar in flower that Cribb's collapsing them into one species made some sense. But if you had a group of each of the three, the vegetation patterns, and growth habit seems to separate them into identifiable groups. 

originally, Paph javanicum ONLY came from the island of Java. It had the most beautiful of foliage patterns, in some ways more like venustum, but in green, white and silver. It had none of the red or brown markings on the leaves that venustum has. Very pretty leaves. Most of what I have seen these days labelled javanicum does not look at all like the javanicums of the Ray Rands days. 

Paph virens - came from Borneo, which is not all that far from Java. Flower nearly identical, foliage rather boring compared to javanicum, a square block tesselation that looks a lot like callosum or barbatum. This type is what I have seen lately labelled as javanicum

Paph purpurescens (sensu Fowlie) - this was a geographic race identified by Fowlie, also from somewhere on the island of Borneo. Its foliage is a bit darker green than virens, not dramatic enough to say much more than it might be a geographic race, but it is a little different in foliage. In the late 1970's and early 1980's I got to see quite a number of these plants. But after Dick Clemments passed away, I never again saw a group of these in any one place. 

So with the flowers being similar enough that I could not tell them apart by flower, Crib might be right in collapsing them under the same species name. But if you ever saw a Paph javanicum that really came from Java, you would immediately think it was a different species just by the foliage. Sadly, in the USA the last living 'true' javanicum I know of died in 1994. Haven't seen one I thought was from Java since. Another species lost to cultivation only to have its name co-opted by its less attractive cousin. 

I could be wrong, anyone out there with a 'true' javanicum? That has a verified provenance to a Java origin?


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## Rick (Feb 14, 2013)

I got this plant from Tom Kalina, so maybe he knows the origin?
Based on Leo's foliage description, it sounds very much like virens.

I've seen some pictures of javanica (from Java) and virens. And would agree very similar, but the virens more often than not seems to have a bit more purple in the petals than off Borneo versions.


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## tomkalina (Feb 14, 2013)

Rick,

Your plant's parent came originally from Dick Clements (Birchwood Orchids), who imported a lot of Paph. species back in the day, primarily from two sources: Mr. Atmo Kolopaking (Liem Kie Wie) and a Philippine nursery owned at that time by Mrs. Jacinta Urban Tecson. FYI - the current state of slipper orchid taxonomic affairs would have made Clements more than a little crazy......


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## Rick (Feb 14, 2013)

Pretty cool history. Thanks Tom


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## Rick (Feb 14, 2013)

tomkalina said:


> Rick,
> 
> Your plant's parent came originally from Dick Clements (Birchwood Orchids), who imported a lot of Paph. species back in the day, primarily from two sources: Mr. Atmo Kolopaking (Liem Kie Wie) and a Philippine nursery owned at that time by Mrs. Jacinta Urban Tecson. FYI - the current state of slipper orchid taxonomic affairs would have made Clements more than a little crazy......



Do you still have more to sell?

I might need to self this puppy.


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## tomkalina (Feb 14, 2013)

Rick,

I have one or two left, but I'm keeping those to propagate. Glad your's is doing well, though - there aren't many around. The "classic" javanicums, those with the really light green, sharpely tesselated leaves - are almost impossible to find nowadays; at least in the U.S.


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## Stone (Feb 15, 2013)

Yet another one I need.


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## UweM (Feb 15, 2013)

Leo Schordje said:


> I could be wrong, anyone out there with a 'true' javanicum? That has a verified provenance to a Java origin?



...here are some pictures of Paph. purpurascens (left) and Paph. javanicum (right)























The locality of *Paph. purpurascens* is not be known - there are different statements about this: Borneo or Sumatra





















*Paph. javanicum* comes from Java, Bali and other small Sunda islands and perhaps from Sumatra 





















Paph. javanicum with the famous silver-green foliage is hard to find even...



@Rick: can you show us the leaves of the Paph. virens from Borneo?


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## Susie11 (Feb 15, 2013)

A beauty!


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## Rick (Feb 15, 2013)

UweM said:


> .
> @Rick: can you show us the leaves of the Paph. virens from Borneo?



Sounds like a weekend project.


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## likespaphs (Feb 15, 2013)

i like that so much more than i thought i would


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## Leo Schordje (Feb 16, 2013)

Uwem
very nice, beautiful plants. The leaves of your javanicum in the last photo do look like the javanicum of old I remember, though I seem to remember seeing even more of a silver border around the outer margin of the leaves, but your plant is similar enough that I can accept that as being the 'true to type' original javanicum. Thank you for posting the photos.


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## Ozpaph (Feb 16, 2013)

The flowers looked really similar to me until you showed the staminode. Much easier to tell they're different, but they must be closely related?


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## Rick (Feb 16, 2013)

Ozpaph said:


> The flowers looked really similar to me until you showed the staminode. Much easier to tell they're different, but they must be closely related?



Yup very closely related, (and probably the same species).

In Averyanov's book on Vietnamese paphs he has a figure of staminode shapes for appletonianum (only from Vietnam) populations. The range of shapes is crazy just within what is considered a single species. So in the case of virens, there just isn't enough difference of morphometric characteristics to justify species status. 

May need to go to DNA to find it. (If its worth the effort)


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## Rick (Feb 16, 2013)

UweM said:


> ...here are some pictures of Paph. purpurascens (left) and Paph. javanicum (right)
> 
> 
> 
> ...








Different from all of the above, but with the balance of dark to light green blotching favoring the purperencsis


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