# Phrag hirtzii



## Rick (Jun 9, 2013)

Back in February I swapped a pot of peacei for this division of hirtzii. It originally came from Ecuagenera.

I think this was a great swap.




Big flower, here compared to longifolium.




Some say this is just a variety of longifolium, but these are very different plants.




longifolium is a huge plant in comparison


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## SlipperFan (Jun 9, 2013)

You are very lucky, Rick! I've been looking for a hirtzii for a long time. This is a nice one. Not like I remembered -- but I do remember the very twisty petals.


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## eggshells (Jun 9, 2013)

Very nice and cute.


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## eaborne (Jun 9, 2013)

Thanks for the comparison. I just got a hirtzii from Ecuagenera and can't wait for it to bloom!


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## phrag guy (Jun 10, 2013)

very nice,great to see


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## SlipperKing (Jun 10, 2013)

Nice Rick but I can see boissierianum bleeding through. Is there any discussion on the makeup of this species?


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## Susie11 (Jun 10, 2013)

Nice one.


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## NYEric (Jun 10, 2013)

Definitely not the same as longifolium. Good acquisition, they are not common at all!


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## Chuck (Jun 10, 2013)

Very nice example.

Chuck


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## dodidoki (Jun 10, 2013)

I just can say: wow! Very nice.


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## Ditto (Jun 10, 2013)

Nice !!


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## phraggy (Jun 11, 2013)

Lovely. Haven't seen one for sale in years.

Ed


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## NYEric (Jun 11, 2013)

:ninja: Pssst, I know a guy in Canada if you want to divide. :wink:


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## eggshells (Jun 11, 2013)

NYEric said:


> :ninja: Pssst, I know a guy in Canada if you want to divide. :wink:



Are you referring to me Eric? If so, please do tell me the details.


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## Rick (Jun 11, 2013)

SlipperKing said:


> Nice Rick but I can see boissierianum bleeding through. Is there any discussion on the makeup of this species?


I don't think I can add much intelegent debate to that as to whether this is a natural hybrid or distinct species.

My old McCook reprint says she was sceptical at first, but after seeing them in the proximatey of longifolium, and being as distinctly different as shown above, she felt its a distinct species.

Tom Kalina probably knows much more about this species.


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## The Orchid Boy (Jun 12, 2013)

Very nice!


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## eteson (Jun 12, 2013)

SlipperKing said:


> Nice Rick but I can see boissierianum bleeding through



I agree with you, I can see some degree of hybridation in this particular one... seems to me not a pure hirtzii...

This one is a pure hirtzii from the South of Colombia:


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## eggshells (Jun 12, 2013)

Is that yours Eliseo? Very handsome plant.


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## SlipperKing (Jun 12, 2013)

So Eliseo,
Does boissierianum grow near colonies of hirtizii and Rick's plant be a result of inter-breeding?


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## eteson (Jun 12, 2013)

SlipperKing said:


> So Eliseo,
> Does boissierianum grow near colonies of hirtizii and Rick's plant be a result of inter-breeding?



I have never seen boissierianum in the wild. It is present (at least theoretically) in the southern part of Ecuador and Perú while the hirtzii is preset in the northern part of Ecuador and Southern part of Colombia. The plant that I am showing was collected close to the Ecuador-Colombia border.

I am not sure about natural inter-breeding between both species in the wild, but I have found that it is frequent in our greenhouses.


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## SlipperKing (Jun 12, 2013)

So the likelihood Rick's plant is a natural hybrid is highly unlikely then.


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## Rick (Jun 13, 2013)

SlipperKing said:


> So the likelihood Rick's plant is a natural hybrid is highly unlikely then.



Rick The intense ruffling of the petals is reminiscent of boissierianum (and the others in that group like reticulatum) but those are also very big plants with leaf size about the same as longifolium.

In this case to get the plant leaves so small and narrow in comparison to longifolium you would need pearcei or amazonica/richteri in the background. I don't see how you could put boissierianum onto a normal longifolium and end up with a plant not much bigger than a richteri.


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## SlipperKing (Jun 13, 2013)

I agree Rick, that's why we need Eliseo to show us more clones of hirtzii. To me, hirtzii has always been argue as a longifolium variant and not a species on it's own accord. Then others want to argue that it is a species. This has gone on for years. In order for either of these two view points to be held dear to heart of a lumper or a spliter, you have to have a plant looking like Eliseo. Agree? Then your plant comes along. It looks nothing like a longifolium. So, neither the lumper nor the spliter have a point to stand on. I think your plant is more complex then a primary and it's probably a man made creation. Either honesty or dishonestly the tag got altered and all that remain was hirtzii.
Can you see this view point?
So, if someone creditable, either from the natural area or a known Phrag guy can come up with more pictures of hirtzii (preferable in-situ) to show variation with in the hirtzii concept and show overlap with your plant, then I'll be convinced.


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## Rick (Jun 13, 2013)

Actually if you look at the photos in McCooks old checklist and Gruss's article in OD, my flower looks more like those than Eliseo's . Which aside from missing the extra wavy petal edges is a lot closer to my flower than any longifolium. If it really has that big a range, that amount of variation is no big deal.

I don't know, but how complex can they mix stuff at Ecugenera to get to "complex" status?


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## Rick (Jun 13, 2013)

McCooks photo was supplied by Tom Kalina

Gruss has photos (including an insitu pic that is too small for detail) supplied by both him and Dodson (the guy who described the plant in 1988). So you would think that he would know his own plant if he saw it??


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## SlipperKing (Jun 14, 2013)

Tobias just posted a hirtzii of his and it looks very much like yours!


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## eteson (Jun 14, 2013)

WOW! This thread is resulting really interesting!
I only have 2 clones of "hirzii", both two are wild collected (I hate to say that but I got both two from a local collector from the south of my Country). We have to wait a little bit to see the second one in bloom again, probably it is going to take about 4 months), but is very similar to the the one I posted.
My plant and Rick´s one are very different in flower shape (look at the staminode and the "tooth" in the upper rim of the pouch), but the leaves and the size of the plant seem to me very similar. Rick, could you measure the length and wide of the leaves?

If you take into account only the flower shape the Rick's plant could be something in between my plant and a boissierianum. I don't know how dominant are hirtzii or boissierianum in one hypotetical hybrid with respect to leaf size and plant size...

I am going to get more data about the exact location from where my plants where collected.


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## Rick (Jun 14, 2013)

http://www.ecuagenera.com/epages/wh...cts/PRS1383&ViewAction=ViewProductDetailImage

This is a picture from the Ecuagenera website pricelist. I'd say it looks just like my flower.

When I looked at Google Images, 2 pictures of Ecuagenera tours finding hirtzii in situ are shown. One has a pic of Frank Severa photographing them in-situ. So I'm pretty sure the Ecuagenera plants came from wild collected stock, and are not GH or otherwise man made hybrids.


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## eteson (Jun 14, 2013)

Rick said:


> http://www.ecuagenera.com/epages/wh...cts/PRS1383&ViewAction=ViewProductDetailImage
> 
> This is a picture from the Ecuagenera website pricelist. I'd say it looks just like my flower.
> 
> When I looked at Google Images, 2 pictures of Ecuagenera tours finding hirtzii in situ are shown. One has a pic of Frank Severa photographing them in-situ. So I'm pretty sure the Ecuagenera plants came from wild collected stock, and are not GH or otherwise man made hybrids.



Then I guess that mine is one endmember variation of hirtzii (far from boissierianum).
I got the precise location where my plants where collected: road between Cali and Buenaventura in the south of Colombia (I have the precise location and it could be supplied to bona fide researchers).


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## Rick (Jun 14, 2013)

eteson said:


> Then I guess that mine is one endmember variation of hirtzii (far from boissierianum).
> I got the precise location where my plants where collected: road between Cali and Buenaventura in the south of Colombia (I have the precise location and it could be supplied to bona fide researchers).



It's cool that you have such precise collection data. I really don't think yours is that different when I compare the amount of natural variation in the pink ladyslippers up here just on the side of one hill (let alone crossing a couple hundred miles). If everything was a carbon copy, we'd get bored looking at the same flower over and over.:wink:

The biggest leaves on my plant are 1.5cm wide and about 35cm long.


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## eteson (Jun 15, 2013)

Rick said:


> It's cool that you have such precise collection data. I really don't think yours is that different when I compare the amount of natural variation in the pink ladyslippers up here just on the side of one hill (let alone crossing a couple hundred miles). If everything was a carbon copy, we'd get bored looking at the same flower over and over.:wink:
> 
> The biggest leaves on my plant are 1.5cm wide and about 35cm long.



You are true, can be natural variation... your plant and my plants come from places hundreds of Km away...

The leaves of my plant are a little bit smaller max 1.1cm wide and 30cm long


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## Rick (Jun 15, 2013)

eteson said:


> You are true, can be natural variation... your plant and my plants come from places hundreds of Km away...
> 
> The leaves of my plant are a little bit smaller max 1.1cm wide and 30cm long



I also think the difference is small enough to see it in culture. I have posted pictures of my longifolium at different times of the year when the amount of red in the petals, red speckling on the back of the pouch, and overall size change dramatically from summer to winter. The cool/shady time makes for a much different flower.

Petal "twistiness" can vary a lot too with changes in humidity and nutrition (water balance).


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## Trimorph (Jun 15, 2013)

My blooming plant is one of two plants I received from ecugenera too.

http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30512



SlipperKing said:


> Tobias just posted a hirtzii of his and it looks very much like yours!


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## eaborne (Jun 16, 2013)

I just bought a hirtzii from Ecuagenera in May but it will be a while before it blooms. I asked Ivan Portilla in person if it was definitely an authentic hirtzii and he said absolutely without question. So it may be a while before it blooms but when it does I post a picture as well.


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