# Hybridising: Dend. kingianum x pedunculatum



## Marc (Dec 9, 2011)

I currently have multiple plants of Dend. kingianum blooming or in bud. I also have a Dend. speciosum var. pedunculatum in bud as we speak.

Now I'm wondering about two things.

First of all naming, the hybrid of kingianum x speciosum = Delicatum. Since then var. pedunculatum has been elivated to species status. Or at least as far as I know, so would this hybrid be actually a new primary or would it still be called Delicatum.

Second of all plant size. 

The kingianums I have tend to grow very small, and pedunculatum is a small grower as well. Could I expect the result of this to be small as well and size wise fall somewere between these two.

Or can this hybrid mix the involved genetics in such a way that you would end up with a plant that is actually bigger when it's adult then both of its parents?

edit: 

This is the Dend. speciosum var. pedunculatum I own.


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## SlipperFan (Dec 9, 2011)

Is that a spike? It looks like it's made of gold.

RHS says pedunculatum is a variety of speciosum.


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## Marc (Dec 10, 2011)

SlipperFan said:


> Is that a spike? It looks like it's made of gold.
> 
> RHS says pedunculatum is a variety of speciosum.



Yep it'a spiking. Colour might be of because i took the picture with my smartphone.


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## Marc (Dec 10, 2011)

Here is a picture of the kingianum I made today.






This plant is going to receive the speciosum pollen and probably some other pollen as well.


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## emydura (Dec 10, 2011)

I think these are still all considered Delicatum. Although it keeps changing and there are different views, I'm not convinced that penuculatum is considered as a distinct species. In naycase, I'm sure that ANOS (Australian Native Orchid Society) would still register tham as Delicatum. I guess it is a bit like all these different forms of phillipinense and the hybrid St Swithin.

I would expect that it would be a more compact Delicatum.


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## Marc (Dec 10, 2011)

Thanks for the input



emydura said:


> I would expect that it would be a more compact Delicatum.



And that's the primary goal! :wink:


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## Marc (Dec 11, 2011)

My brother came over today and he had two gifts for me.

The first one was the flower of a Dend. tetragonum






Pollen of this flower has been used to polinate two flowers of my biggest kingianum to recreate the primary hybrid. Dend. Ellen.

The second gift he brought with him was a division of a small for of Dend. kingianum, the pseudobulbs of this plant only are +/-3 cm's long. It can be seen in the back in the picture of the flower.


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## SlipperFan (Dec 11, 2011)

tetragonum x kingianum should really be interesting! I might have to move to the Netherlands!


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## Marc (Dec 12, 2011)

SlipperFan said:


> tetragonum x kingianum should really be interesting! I might have to move to the Netherlands!



Just keep following this thread. Before you start moving we must first have a succesfull polination. 

Then the seed has to be harvest at the right time, I plan on getting green pods. I read somewere that straight kingianum pods mature in aprox. 3 months. But I've polinated two flowers so I can always take one of and let the other one mature for a bit more.

After harvesting I need to find someone to do the sowing for me. I've got three adresses that I can ask so that should be no problem.

And then there is succesfull germination / replating etc. et.


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## TyroneGenade (Dec 12, 2011)

Hi,

I can do the sowing but how you are going to get the plants back from me in South Africa is another story!

Contact Matthias at http://www.laminarflow.at/. He should be able to help you.

If you have the time to self that mini kingianum please save some seed for me. I like these minatures. I have a compot of Hilda Poxon made from pedunculatum and tetragonum. They are a long way from flowering but I am patient.


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## Marc (Dec 12, 2011)

TyroneGenade said:


> Hi,
> 
> I can do the sowing but how you are going to get the plants back from me in South Africa is another story!
> 
> ...



As getting the plants back will be a major hurdle I don't think it's an option. But still thanks for the offer!  As I said I got three adresses were I can ask to get the seeds flasked so no worries there.

I'll see what I can do with the small kingianum, I'll probably not put any pollen on it this year. I first want to get it established in the new pot.


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## Marc (Dec 17, 2011)

Someone pointed out to me that I made a mistake in my first post.

Dendrobium Delicatum should only be used for the natural hybrid, and thus written as Dend. X Delicatum.

The artificial hybrid between kingianum and speciosum should be called: Dend. Specio-kingianum, this artificial hybrid was registered in 1892 by mr. Lawrence.


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## Stone (Dec 17, 2011)

Marc, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but felt I had to say that I did this exact same cross years ago ( pedunc x small king ) and found it was the biggest waste of time! The seedlings took ''forever '' to flower and when they did they were sparse, small and a muddy washed-out colour. Just awful! So I thought you should know this before investing time in this cross. peduc x tetra would be much more interesting result but reluctant to flower.

Cheers
Mike


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## Marc (Dec 20, 2011)

Stone said:


> Marc, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but felt I had to say that I did this exact same cross years ago ( pedunc x small king ) and found it was the biggest waste of time! The seedlings took ''forever '' to flower and when they did they were sparse, small and a muddy washed-out colour. Just awful! So I thought you should know this before investing time in this cross. peduc x tetra would be much more interesting result but reluctant to flower.
> 
> Cheers
> Mike



I'm not planning on putting pollen on my small kingianum for now. I've got a couple of them and I'll use a normal sized kingianum to receive the speciosum pollen.

Here are a few shots of the plants, first is the devision of the small form of kingianum I received. I've added a tape meassure so it's small size is even clearer.






The picture below is the kingianum that is going to used to receive the speciosum pollen. There is allready tetragonum pollen on a few flowers and things are looking good so far. 






edit:

Small adition, my speciosum is slowly opening up now. The first two flowers are allready opening up and it's allready spreading a "heavy" sweet smell which is quite similar to the fragrance produced by Dend. kingianum.


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## Marc (Dec 31, 2011)

It looks like the polination attempt with the tetragonum pollen succeeded as the seed pods are slowly gaining in size.

Today I also did the polination of the cross that this topic is actually about. I've polinated three flowers of my biggest kingianum with the pollen of my speciosum var. pedunculatum. A flower of which can be seen below and the rest of the pictures are to be found in the link below as well.






http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?p=333971#post333971


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## Roy (Jan 1, 2012)

The thoughts of making the tetragonam x kingianum cross, that = D. Ellen.
Close to the first Aussie native hybrid made. Its been done 100's of times and makes a nice, quick growing pot plant. Shpe of the flower is nearly all tetragonam with the plant usually 1/2 tetra & 1/2 kingie, upright squarish canes, 2 - 4 leaves & can flower multiple times a year.


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## Marc (Jan 2, 2012)

Roy said:


> The thoughts of making the tetragonam x kingianum cross, that = D. Ellen.
> Close to the first Aussie native hybrid made. Its been done 100's of times and makes a nice, quick growing pot plant. Shpe of the flower is nearly all tetragonam with the plant usually 1/2 tetra & 1/2 kingie, upright squarish canes, 2 - 4 leaves & can flower multiple times a year.



I hope that I'll end up with plants as you describe but there are still a few hurdles to take before we reach that stage.


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## Dido (Jan 2, 2012)

Think on me if you have to much seedlings....


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## Marc (Jan 2, 2012)

Dido said:


> Think on me if you have to much seedlings....



I'm sure we will be able to work something out once we reach the stage that there are actually seedlings growing on my windowsills.


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## Marc (Jan 3, 2012)

The flowers that I polinated with tetragonum pollen are still on the plant and wilting. Ovary looks a bit swolen so all is good, allthough there is some colour change in the short stem that leads from the main stem to the ovary.

First signs of succesfull polination of the speciosum cross can also be seen. I tore of the lip of the flower before polinating to make the collumn easier to reach. The flower itself has closed again, preventing acces to the stigma.


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## Marc (Jan 6, 2012)

Yesterday I was checking up on my plants and noticed that the kingianum dropped one of the two flowers that were polinated with tetragonum pollen. 

I hope the other one will remain on the plant. Considering to remove the newer flowers that have opened on the same stem after I did the polinating attempt.


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## Marc (Jan 7, 2012)

This morning the 2nd flower with tetra pollen fell from the plant. I called my father and he still had fresh tetragon flowers on one of his plants so this morning I allready removed all the pollen from 5 flowers on the same stem.

When I returned home this afternoon I used the pollen of two tetragonum flowers to polinate 4 kingianum flowers. And I removed the 5th flower from the stem. I hope I have a better result this run.

Fingers crossed.


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## Marc (Jan 17, 2012)

The ovary's of the flowers that I put the speciosum pollen on are nicely swelling so these are looking good so far.

The flowers on which I put the tetragonum pollen show also signs of pollination as they have folded the sepals over the collumn and there is some swelling of the ovary but not as strong as the other ones. Of course the polination was done 8 days later.


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## Dido (Jan 17, 2012)

cross fingers for you


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## Marc (Feb 4, 2012)

Just a brief update

Developing capsules of the kingianum x speciosum cross:







As far as I'm concerned they look nice and healthy they have grown quite a bit, allthough I'm wondering if they will increase even more.

( The paph in the back is one of my insignes. )

Developing capsules of the kingianum x tetragonum cross:






Colour looks a little bit pale and size is about 30% of the speciosum cross. Colour is also a bit different, I'm wondering can different pollen parents result in different capsule size? 

The tetragonum cross was done one week later but I can't imagine that the size difference is only caused by them being a week younger.


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## SlipperFan (Feb 4, 2012)

Should be very interesting results. I don't think much has been done with tetragonum.


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## goldenrose (Feb 5, 2012)

Congrats! Exciting!


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## Marc (Feb 6, 2012)

Thanks guys, the only thing I can do now is take care of the plant and let nature do it's thing. I'll update if anything happens, otherwise I except to bring the pods away for sowing by the end of march.


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## Roy (Feb 6, 2012)

A note of interest, make sure you don't use too much pollen when crossing the small flower natives or it will choke & the pollen won't reach the ovary.


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## Marc (Feb 6, 2012)

Roy said:


> A note of interest, make sure you don't use too much pollen when crossing the small flower natives or it will choke & the pollen won't reach the ovary.



Interesting comment but I think I've had succes. Especially with the speciosum pollen which were the biggest of the two and they seem to have done their work. The tetragonum pollen was smoller but I'm still wondering why the ovaries haven't swollen as much.


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## Marc (Feb 8, 2012)

Seems that the plant is aborting the tetragonum cross again. First flower fell off the plant yesterday.


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## SlipperFan (Feb 8, 2012)




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## Marc (Feb 11, 2012)

All tetragonum attemps failed again .


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## SlipperFan (Feb 11, 2012)

I wonder what the secret is. Maybe you should place both plants into a plastic bag and fill it with fungus gnats -- maybe they know the secret...


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## Marc (Feb 19, 2012)

Oooooooooooooops :evil:


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## Marc (Mar 12, 2012)

Unfortunately I had no succes with the crosses that I tried last update. The photo above shows the remains of my attempt to cross my purple lipped white kingianum with both x gracillium and falcorostrum.

Both these attempts were aborted two weeks ago.


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## SlipperFan (Mar 12, 2012)

Must be frustrating.


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## Marc (Oct 1, 2012)

Just a small update, the kingianum x speciosum cross has been brought to the flasker a few months ago. Current status is unkown, I'll try to find out if they germinated in the coming weeks.


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## Marc (Oct 6, 2012)

I just received word that the plants have germinated and are growing like crazy. They might even leave their bottles soon.


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## SlipperFan (Oct 6, 2012)

:clap:


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## Dido (Oct 7, 2012)

congrats that always nice to here


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## Marc (Apr 23, 2013)

Dend. kingianum x pedunculatum deflasked!!!!

Sown last year in April, deflasked this year in April. These things have grown like weeds. I deflasked them on the 12th of April

This was the first time that I deflasked anything and so far I'm pleased with the result. The agar came of easily and after separating all the plants I soaked them in a 0,1% bleach solution. Roots were trimmed so they had a maximum length of 3cm's and they were planted in fine bark.


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## Dido (Apr 23, 2013)

They look good cross fingers for you


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## SlipperFan (Apr 23, 2013)

Should be interesting...


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