# Paph lowii var album



## Gilda (May 15, 2019)

It is paler than pictured. I find the dots across the top of the petals interesting.


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## GuRu (May 15, 2019)

Gilda, that's a very beautiful flower and I'm green with envy to see this because I had one seedling, many years ago.....but sadly the culture failed.
On the other hand, as far as I know, these spots mentioned of you prevent it to be a true album. So it's correct name should be P. lowii f. aureum.


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## Linus_Cello (May 15, 2019)

Cool. Where’d you get this from?


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## Camellkc (May 15, 2019)

Nice form. But unluckily that it is not a pure album with black dots in the petals.


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## Gilda (May 15, 2019)

GuRu said:


> Gilda, that's a very beautiful flower and I'm green with envy to see this because I had one seedling, many years ago.....but sadly the culture failed.
> On the other hand, as far as I know, these spots mentioned of you prevent it to be a true album. So it's correct name should be P. lowii f. aureum.


 Thank you for the info


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## Gilda (May 15, 2019)

Linus_Cello said:


> Cool. Where’d you get this from?


Looking Glass Orchids, 2 years ago as a BS seedling


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## Gilda (May 15, 2019)

Camellkc said:


> Nice form. But unluckily that it is not a pure album with black dots in the petals.


I like the dots ...so for me it's not unlucky.


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## NYEric (May 15, 2019)

Nice, thanks for sharing.


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## SlipperKing (May 16, 2019)

Great presentation for the aureum form. I've seen a few with very skinny dorsals. 
Mine bloomed out very green and white with the same maroon dots on the petals near the stami. Not at all aureum, so what to call that? Viridis?


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## Ozpaph (May 16, 2019)

That's a beauty!


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## blondie (May 16, 2019)

Congrats it's stunning!!! I only have a seedling it's got many years to go yet lol


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## Gilda (May 16, 2019)

SlipperKing said:


> Great presentation for the aureum form. I've seen a few with very skinny dorsals.
> Mine bloomed out very green and white with the same maroon dots on the petals near the stami. Not at all aureum, so what to call that? Viridis?



Do you have a pic Rick ? interesting how these can be so different.


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## SlipperKing (May 17, 2019)

Here Gilda..


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## Gilda (May 17, 2019)

SlipperKing said:


> Here Gilda..


Great flower count ! I see the dots , and it is limey green. Thanks for sharing the pic.


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## DrLeslieEe (Jun 5, 2019)

Great pics and blooming! These 'album' lowiis are my favorite multiflorals.

These flowers are coined 'albescent' as they are part of a two step breeding program to create stronger albino plants in the next generation. They are from an albino cross with half albino. 

I bought one from Japan Tokyo Dome Show and it was sulphur yellow with wide 'spoon paddle' petals, but had the same brown spots at the base of the petals. By selfing or sibbing these, pure albinos will appear in the next generation without these brown spots.


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## musa (Jun 5, 2019)

Amazing colour!


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## Ozpaph (Jun 5, 2019)

that's a cracker!


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## Guldal (Jun 5, 2019)

Botanically speaking, the albinistic colour form of lowii was validly published by Cribb as 'aureum' (golden), which makes a lot of sense seeing the superb flower in DrLeslieEe's post... All flowers in the photos, following Cribb's description, by the way, had little, dark spots on the upper, central part of the petals.

I've seen photos of plants with more greenish coloured flowers of lowii (as f.ex. Slipperking's splendid one in this thread), but as no one legitimatelly has published fma. virescens, even these plants would at the moment be designated as fma. aureum. You could, though, put a (Hort.) behind the name, signifying that the name is a horticultural one, and not a botanically legit one - in casu P. lowii fma. virescens.

Further: Botanists tend these days not to ascribe varietal status to plants that morphologically (structurally) do not differ from the typical form, but only have a different colouring. These are instead treated as colour forms (abbr. fma), which, I think, makes a lot of sense.

To call any of the albinistic forms of flowers of lowii 'album' is botanically nonsense - album means (pure) white (as f.ex. seen in bellatulum fma. album or niveum ditto), see f.ex. Gruß or Braem for a thorough discussion of this matter.
This doesn't render clonal epithets as 'Albino Beauty' illegit, though - the correct designation for that clone would thus be: Paphiopedilum lowii fma. aureum 'Albino Beauty'.

PS. Some botanists haven't made life easier for the rest of us by designating plants as album, that clearly aren't, but as Braem and his co- authors point out: "The rules of taxonomy ... lack proper safety mechanisms against the misuse of the designation "alba/album/albus". A designation of a species or an intraspecific taxon, as long as it is part of a validly and effectively published concept, is to be followed, no matter how erroneous or ludicrous the designation may be". The authors mention P. haynaldianum fma. album, a plant with mainly green flowers, as an example of this (Braem et al.: "The Genus Paphiopedilum. 2nd Edition", p. 44. Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh, 2016).

Kind regards,
Jens


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## Guldal (Jun 6, 2019)

Arrrgh: with the horticultural name I forgot the important part:



Guldal said:


> You could, though, put a (Hort.) behind the name, signifying that the name is a horticultural one, and not a botanically legit one - in casu P. lowii fma. virescens



Recte: Paphiopedilum lowii fma. virescens (Hort.).

The same would apply to DrLeslieEe's use of albescens: P. lowii fma. albescens (Hort.).

Although, this last example would leave us with the conundrum: why choose a new designation for a plant, that is clearly a misnomer ('albescens' = whitish, becoming white), compared with the validly published, botanical name ('aureum' = golden yellow)?


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## Gilda (Jun 6, 2019)

Thank you Jens , a great explanation. I love the form on mine, especially the dorsal and wide "spoons ". I hope to see the next generation without the spots, till then I just want to keep mine happy and growing.


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## Guldal (Jun 6, 2019)

Gilda, I think your flower has great form... and judging from the photo it looks as if it has a pretty fair size, too?!

I think it's nice to know that the spots were present on the first described and naturally occuring examples of this colour form. Some might even find the spotting an added bonus from an aesthetic point of view (from some of his other comments, I could imagine, this was a stance, that 'Fibre', experienced grower and breeder here om STC, would tend to take)!

Kind regards,
Jens


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## DrLeslieEe (Jun 11, 2019)

Well said Jens! I think I agree with 'aureum' yellow than whitish 'albescent' for mine. I hope to get the green 'virescens' form in my other lowii ('Albino Beauty' x self) that is almost ready for its first bloom.


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## Guldal (Jun 11, 2019)

Hi, Leslie

I'm so envious of your beautifull aureum plant...I had one myself a couple of years ago, that was awarded with a BM on its first flowering... Sadly it was one of a couple of plants, that went to orchid heaven due to a mite infestion, that I first discovered (way too) late. Mr. Christiansen at Fredensborg was so kind to offer me his help nursing back to health, what he can of the remaining plants, that were infested.

I got an 'Albino Beauty' x self from Sam at the Dresden Easter Show this year, but at the moment the jury is out on whether it survives the stress of being transported back and forth barerooted!

Keep us posted on the development of your Albino Beauty! And may I enquire where you got your aureum bellissimum? (I would so love to replace my dearly loved departed one!)

Kind regards,
Jens


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## DrLeslieEe (Jun 12, 2019)

Gilda, the form on your lowii is indeed very nice. Perhaps we can exchange pollen on their next blooming?

Jens, sorry to hear of your aureum. Do you have a pic of that BM blooming?

Fingers crossed for the adaptation and survival of the Dresden lowii. High humidity and warmth will help it to root.

I got my lowii aureum from the Japan Tokyo Dome show in February 2019, almost 4 months ago from a local Japanese vendor. The original was from Sam's breeding. There were 2-3 other lowii aureums there too but this one was the darkest one and the best shape. I was walking around on day 1 and noticed it high up on the shelf. Needless to say it was my dream plant (I have been ogling at random web pics for years and was on my list of top plants to locate there) and my first purchase of the show! It was shipped through the Canadian winter (minus 20C!) with other plants and survived the 2 week journey. It is now tucked safe in my growing area and rooting. Phew.


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## KyushuCalanthe (Jun 12, 2019)

I love all of them, but like Gilda's the best.


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## DrLeslieEe (Feb 22, 2020)

Any update on anyone’s albums? I almost lost mine when I saw the new growth centre leaf brown! So I sprinkled cinnamon spice on it and it stopped. Luckily the leaf is growing clean. Whew. But no blooms yet. Fingers crossed. Really just happy the plant is alive!!


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## Phred (Feb 23, 2020)

Guldal said:


> I got an 'Albino Beauty' x self from Sam at the Dresden Easter Show this year, but at the moment the jury is out on whether it survives the stress of being transported back and forth barerooted!
> Jens



Gilda’s
For several years now I have used a soluble mycorrhizae product with my Paphiopedilum. I’ve had great success with all of the Paphs shipped to the USA bare root... no matter where they’ve come from. I quit using it for about a year because I had developed a bumper crop of fungus gnats which I believed were feeding on the mycorrhizae. In that time period I slowly lost just about every bare root Paph I bought from overseas vendors. Since going back to using mycorrhizae for the last couple years I haven’t lost anything that came in bare root. The product I use is made by ‘Age Old Organics’. It has strains of both ‘endo’ and ‘Ecto’ mycorrhizae. Endo-mycorrhizae go into the root and the plants actually feed on them... I think this is very important for bare root plant survival .


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