# Paphiopedilum ooii and Paphiopedilum xkimballianum



## Roth (Oct 9, 2009)

Last week I visited Malaysia and Sabah, I discussed with the collector of the Paph. ooii. There is only one man who knows the location in Sabah, absolutely no one else, and except his brother in law, he never accepted or allowed anyone to come to the place it is coming from. He has been the only source for that species.

He had a funny plant, I will post the pictures in this thread tomorrow, a Paphiopedilum xkimballianum, rothschildianum x dayanum. The plant was the size of a rothschildianum, pointed leaves, mottled, 14 growths. Rothschildianum is still plentiful in the wild, and there are many locations in and outside the Kinabalu park. As for the natural hybrids, it is the fourth time I see a plant of it. I have seen before 2 plants in Ranau, at the War Memorial, 1 plant in a nursery on the way to Sandakan and 1 last week, much bigger than any of the other 3. Apparently it is not extremely rare or not extremely common, he said he founds usually 3-5 such plants a year. It is therefore not a legend, and that natural hybrid really exists.

As for ooii, the news were extremely disappointing in fact. There are still some colonies in the wild, but few. Most have been ordered by one famous Malaysian nurseryman over the years, who exported several hundreds with CITES - go to the Trade database www.cites.org

The interesting fact, the collector has seen 2 plants with more than 5 flowers per stem, one with 12 flowers. All the others were, according to him and the mass of photos he had, much smaller, with usually 3-5 flowers/stem maximum. The flower stem by itself is not that tall, 60-80 cm. There are Paphiopedilum topperii in the very same area, and a couple rothschildianum. They grow mixed with ooii. It would not be impossible that those 2 plants with 10+ flower stems are natural hybrids of ooii and kolopakingii. Nearly all the ooii plants are in fact the size of Paph. stonei, a little bit larger maybe, but not more, and not as huge as the plant used to describe that species. I expect that, whilst it is an extremely rare species in cultivation, when the legal plants exported to USA and Europe will bloom, there will be a disappointment on to those large stonei-like plants with 3-4 10-12 cm flowers the shape of an average praestans...


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## TyroneGenade (Oct 9, 2009)

If Paph ooii was described based on a hybrid then the description is invalid and the smaller, more uniform plants, then represent an undescribed species... Of course, the real big question is whether one can prove that x ooii is indeed a hybrid.


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## Roth (Oct 9, 2009)

TyroneGenade said:


> If Paph ooii was described based on a hybrid then the description is invalid and the smaller, more uniform plants, then represent an undescribed species... Of course, the real big question is whether one can prove that x ooii is indeed a hybrid.



I think it is impossible to prove it, but the original plant used for the description of the species is absolutely not representative of the species no matter what it is supposed to be. 

Even when you type Paphiopedilum ooii in google or images.google.com , you can find only the picture of the plant used for the description with more than 3 flowers. There are 7 different plants pictured in Google, all of them are 3 flowers, except 1 with 4 flowers...


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## SlipperKing (Oct 9, 2009)

Great, thanks for the update Sandie. Now find out who these people are with legal plants in Europe and the US so we can get in on it! I really don't care if they have 3-5 flowers, I just want ooii.
PS. It's funny you compare ooii with the size of praestans... I always thought ooii was really the lost species of glanduliferum!


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## Roth (Oct 9, 2009)

SlipperKing said:


> Great, thanks for the update Sandie. Now find out who these people are with legal plants in Europe and the US so we can get in on it! I really don't care if they have 3-5 flowers, I just want ooii.
> PS. It's funny you compare ooii with the size of praestans... I always thought ooii was really the lost species of glanduliferum!



Mmmh, the flowers are roughly the size of an OK praestans....

As to find them, I am afraid most of the exported plants except a very few cultivated for some years  are dead since long time... It is a species easy to grow when rooted, but as tricky as a stonei to establish, especially with a quite fat broken rhizome, huge leaves sucking up the water and all roots dead... Same goes for intaniae, that is oddly very close to ooii... Some intaniae have many flowers stem with massive plants, most of them are the size of a medium haynaldianum plant, 3-4 flowers per stem. 

Another note, dendrobium piranha in fact grows in the exact location of ooii...


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## SlipperKing (Oct 9, 2009)

More disapointment!


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## callosum (Oct 9, 2009)

may be DNA probe is needed:rollhappy:


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## Bolero (Oct 9, 2009)

I have a couple of ooii seedlings coming shortly (hopefully the next week or two). I hope it is the right thing.

;-)


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## Roth (Oct 10, 2009)

Bolero said:


> I have a couple of ooii seedlings coming shortly (hopefully the next week or two). I hope it is the right thing.
> 
> ;-)



From where are they coming from? So far, only Sun Moon offered flasks, and they were scam, like most of sun moon offers, be careful.

Ching Hua and a couple others informed to me that there are no more seedlings, flasks or plants of ooii available in Taiwan... There can be a few around however, who knows. Ooii is however very easy to grow if the plants have roots, lots of water, shade, lots of fertilizer, a bit like kolopakingii. Jungle plants are notorious for being amongst the trickiest species to establish however.


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## paphioboy (Oct 11, 2009)

Very interesting...  But I don't think ooii is going to be at the top of my wish list anytime soon.. 
[QUOTEAnother note, dendrobium piranha in fact grows in the exact location of ooii...
][/QUOTE]
There's a plant called dendrobium piranha..? Cool!


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## Bolero (Oct 12, 2009)

Sanderianum said:


> From where are they coming from? So far, only Sun Moon offered flasks, and they were scam, like most of sun moon offers, be careful.
> 
> Ching Hua and a couple others informed to me that there are no more seedlings, flasks or plants of ooii available in Taiwan... There can be a few around however, who knows. Ooii is however very easy to grow if the plants have roots, lots of water, shade, lots of fertilizer, a bit like kolopakingii. Jungle plants are notorious for being amongst the trickiest species to establish however.



Located in Australia. I believe they are the real deal.


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## Roth (Oct 12, 2009)

Paphiopedilum x kimballianum







Interesting that there are ooii flasks in Australia... Can you pm me the nursery who has that ?


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## NYEric (Oct 12, 2009)

I think to establish a species the historical description will have to be tied with a genetically distinct sample.


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## Bolero (Oct 13, 2009)

Sorry I meant I am getting a couple of plants, not flasks. These will be seedlings, I haven't heard of any flasks as such.

Will post some pictures when I get the plants though.


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## paphioboy (Oct 13, 2009)

The x kimballianum looks interesting.. Any pics of the flower..?


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## Roth (Oct 14, 2009)

paphioboy said:


> The x kimballianum looks interesting.. Any pics of the flower..?



I don't think this plant will survive long in fact, as you can see with the various foliar rots that started, I could see one erwinia, several cercospora spots, and the root system was nicely attacked by rhizoctonia. They keep reusing the same beds to store their plants, sick or not, and never use any fungicides or disinfect. By the way, the leaves are in the 40 cm range

Of course it never flowered, it was a freshly jungle collected plant. But it is absolutely sure it is x kimballianum. 

There were quite a lot of rothschildianums from the same collection at that time, same batch, same condition. Rothschildianum is still common and plentiful, there is one nursery in Ranau which gets some hundreds jungle plant every few months, just have to visit to see it...


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## Drorchid (Oct 15, 2009)

paphioboy said:


> The x kimballianum looks interesting.. Any pics of the flower..?



I could only find this "fuzzy" picture on Tanka's website; it looks like it is a picture from Olaf, so maybe he has some better pictures:

http://www.orchid.or.jp/orchid/people/tanaka/InterOrShow/enGermany.html

Robert


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## Roth (Oct 15, 2009)

Drorchid said:


> I could only find this "fuzzy" picture on Tanka's website; it looks like it is a picture from Olaf, so maybe he has some better pictures:
> 
> http://www.orchid.or.jp/orchid/people/tanaka/InterOrShow/enGermany.html
> 
> Robert



I think it is the artificial hybrid there. So far I have seen once a jungle kimballianum in bloom, in Sandakan, and the petals were much more horizontal than the artificial ones I have seen. It's funny actually that the natural hybrids barely resemble the artificial grexes in most cases. 

The dayanum growing near rothschildianum are of the large type, with 40cm+ leafspan plants and flowers in the range of 20 cm. 

Most of the dayanum we had in Europe are either fake, or what they sell as "petri" which is a crappy small type of dayanum - and not the actual petri. So if they used such dayanum x roth to make xKimballianum they are off target...


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Oct 15, 2009)

An artificial hybrid will be 50:50 genes from each parent. Natural hybrids will vary in the percentages from each parent, as they get naturally backcrossed to a parent species, or rearrange their genes over generations through breeding with other hybrids.


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## paphioboy (Oct 15, 2009)

Regardless, kimballianum looks great! Would like to get one..  



> I don't think this plant will survive long in fact, as you can see with the various foliar rots that started, I could see one erwinia, several cercospora spots, and the root system was nicely attacked by rhizoctonia. They keep reusing the same beds to store their plants, sick or not, and never use any fungicides or disinfect. By the way, the leaves are in the 40 cm range



Yes, I know how difficult it is to establish jungle-collected plants. I have seen plants in worse condition which are actually put for sale at orchid shows..


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## Roth (Oct 16, 2009)

paphioboy said:


> Regardless, kimballianum looks great! Would like to get one..
> 
> Yes, I know how difficult it is to establish jungle-collected plants. I have seen plants in worse condition which are actually put for sale at orchid shows..



The worst when people sell and buy jungle plants is that most people, including the commercial growers, do not have access to fungicides and bactericides to save such plants, so they die slowly...


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## Roth (Feb 3, 2010)

:evil::evil:







:evil::evil:


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## valenzino (Feb 3, 2010)

Sanderianum said:


> :evil::evil:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 Finally one of your ooii flowering...hope to see more than 2-3 flowers.


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## NYEric (Feb 3, 2010)

Who cares about multis! oke:


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## Roth (Feb 3, 2010)

valenzino said:


> Finally one of your ooii flowering...hope to see more than 2-3 flowers.



Apparently 2-3, sure not more... So far it just confirms that ooii is more similar to stonei and praestans than the superhugefantastic species it was supposed to be. 

I have only 1 plant that might have a lot of flowers on its spike, but have to wait some more months to a year for that one...


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## SlipperKing (Feb 3, 2010)

Most interesting Sanderianum! I'm very pleased to see the beginings of some sucess. If it does bloom, I image you will not set seed on it and try to grow it up stronger before selfing it or a F2 cross if you have another source for pollen. Am I right?


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## Roth (Feb 4, 2010)

SlipperKing said:


> Most interesting Sanderianum! I'm very pleased to see the beginings of some sucess. If it does bloom, I image you will not set seed on it and try to grow it up stronger before selfing it or a F2 cross if you have another source for pollen. Am I right?



I am afraid it is as strong as that plant can be, it's already well rooted to say the least, so I am in for 2-3 flowers on that. I wait for the others to decide to do something. Actually I want to use parents with a bit more flowers. On the other side, I am always curious to see a cultivated ooii in bloom, that's not that common, and will make nice photos. On internet, the msot recent ones are still couple of years old...


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## SlipperKing (Feb 4, 2010)

You have it in the Orchidiata bark?.....How's your sanderianums coming along? Are they open yet? I'd like to see the HS Select X Brears Select clones you have. Mine looks like it might be dark colored but you never know until it opens.


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## Roth (Feb 4, 2010)

SlipperKing said:


> You have it in the Orchidiata bark?.....How's your sanderianums coming along? Are they open yet? I'd like to see the HS Select X Brears Select clones you have. Mine looks like it might be dark colored but you never know until it opens.



Yes, power+ grade pure... and they root like crazy. sands are in Power or Power+ depending on my mood.

My sands started to open a couple days ago, I wait until the petals expand completely. HS x Bear apparently has a smaller flower than my others, but dark too...


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## paphioboy (Feb 4, 2010)

Wow... so that's an ooii...   Mind showing us a pic of the whole plant (total leafspan) , please..?


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## SlipperKing (Feb 5, 2010)

Here's my HS Select X Bears Select a couple of weeks ago. Is yours about the color as my buds are?




I have it in Power (5) but with spongerock and charcoal. Same as before but with crappy bark before


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## Roth (Feb 6, 2010)

SlipperKing said:


> Here's my HS Select X Bears Select a couple of weeks ago. Is yours about the color as my buds are?
> 
> I have it in Power (5) but with spongerock and charcoal. Same as before but with crappy bark before



Yes, more or less the same color. The flowers start to open, and the petals seems to be quite wide...

I tried the mix of Power and additives but nowadays, when I want to get it more aerated, I just use the Power+. Makes the things less complicated.

About the color of sands - not about yours-, there is one thing, if they dry out a little bit, the color is darker. 

That's why many times the jungle fresh sands have extremely dark small flowers, because their roots are gone, they automatically flower when they are shocked, and there is not enough water supply.


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## paphioboy (Jul 12, 2011)

Just to bump up this thread. X, did you post any pics of the ooii in flower, because I don't remember any threads here...


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## Ozpaph (Aug 12, 2011)

I'd love to see the oii also. Pleaseeeee.


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## paphioboy (Aug 12, 2011)

Michael Ooi recently claimed (on Facebook) that he has a plant of ooii about to flower in his mountain garden, along with 200 plants of rothschildianum and 200 plants of sanderianum. And I quote him, " ex-situ (conservation) is now recognised as a better alternative then in-situ; as many locals are collecting these plants as they are there for the "collecting" and many are even selling them knowing very well that paphiopedilum needs a certain requirements to be able to grow and flower them." Thoughts?


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## emydura (Aug 12, 2011)

It makes no sense to me. Once a species is no longer in the wild, breeding and evolving, it is as good as extinct. People may even grow them well but evenually the plants will die. The breeding of Paphs (& other orchids) is based around selection for traits we like, not for survival in the wild. After a few generations it is quite likely the Paphs we grow would no longer to be able to survive in the wild. 

Fashions come and go. Growing Paph species might be popular now. But who is to say in a 100 years or a 1000 years that it will be still be popular. 

While ever a species is totally dependent on humans for survival, that species has no long term future. I don't see any link between growing species in my glasshouse and their conservation. 

The best form of conservation is to preserve them in their natural habitat.

David


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## SlipperKing (Aug 12, 2011)

Wow that is quite a statement David! As much as I don't want to admit your point is true. It just kills me to think I'm *NOT* the super grower I thought I was!


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## SlipperFan (Aug 12, 2011)

Very sobering thoughts. And when you think about how natural habitats are being cleared to make way for human habitation.....


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Aug 12, 2011)

In principle, I would agree. Except that as habitats are destroyed, plants are lost. Ex situ preservation is essential if we are to keep the species in existence. What has to be done is breeding for preservation, not awards. Fine, select your best and easiest roths for the trade, but at the same time, cross as many representatives of the species as possible, regardless of beauty or ease of culture. Unfortunately, only universities and botanical gardens can do that. I remember years back, post CITES, when Ray Rands had to start selling seed propagated plants, he claimed that his plants were crossed not for awards or beauty, but for their attributes as typical members of their species, with a full range of adaptability.


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## Ozpaph (Aug 13, 2011)

emydura said:


> It makes no sense to me. Once a species is no longer in the wild, breeding and evolving, it is as good as extinct. People may even grow them well but evenually the plants will die. The breeding of Paphs (& other orchids) is based around selection for traits we like, not for survival in the wild. After a few generations it is quite likely the Paphs we grow would no longer to be able to survive in the wild.
> 
> Fashions come and go. Growing Paph species might be popular now. But who is to say in a 100 years or a 1000 years that it will be still be popular.
> 
> ...



Bravo!!!


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## Rick (Aug 13, 2011)

If the wild plants were adaptable enough to conform to a GH habitat in the first place then why isn't the converse true? Also since my GH conditions are different from everyone else then why are we still able to transfer plants around to each other without loosing everything? However, there is no competition in the GH environment, and orchids in general are fringe or transition species that are not competitively aggressive.

The loss of habitat issue really is key, and more subtle than most people believe.

In many cases when orchids are removed from the wild several other activities may also occur making that habitat inhospitable to key plants. For instance adding roads to an area will often change the hydrology of an area by blocking recharge zones. This in turn favors growth of invasive or competitive interactions among understory plants even though the tree canopy is intact. Even though the forest would seem intact, the habitat is not the same and is hostile to replaced orchids (kind of like organ rejection in humans). Really the orchid hasn't changed ex situ, but the forest has changed and is now a different hostile habitat altogether. This makes even in situ conservation very difficult.

You kind of need to ask how people are coming up with all these collected orchids in the first place? There's kind of a limit as to how far some one on foot with a sack on their back is willing to travel just to collect a plant for a pittance. The human communities are growing and spreading farther out into jungle habitats and making both subtle and gross changes as they develop. Generally when humans move into an area they bring changes with them that spread very far from the centers of both villages and cities. Paved roads are a small example. Habitat restoration is certainly doable (I have personal experience in this area), but it requires a lot of effort and attention.


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## paphioboy (Aug 13, 2011)

> Also since my GH conditions are different from everyone else then why are we still able to transfer plants around to each other without loosing everything?



I think that's because we try so hard to keep them alive  In a natural habitat situation, I highly doubt any FCC/AOS quality paphs are able to grow to their full potential just chucked onto a bed of leaf litter..


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## Rick (Aug 13, 2011)

paphioboy said:


> I think that's because we try so hard to keep them alive  In a natural habitat situation, I highly doubt any FCC/AOS quality paphs are able to grow to their full potential just chucked onto a bed of leaf litter..



Hard to say. Seems like we periodically get to see pics of in situ plants that are superior to FCC or CCE plants. Roth is always telling us about FCC quality plants that are either jungle collected or no more than 1st generation captive plants. Seems like we looked into this before, comparing the size of line bred FCC flowers to the taxonomic description (based on wild collected plants) and really didn't see all that much difference.

"Just chucked onto a bed of leaf litter" probably will not work if that bed of leaf litter is in a patch of disturbed forest surrounded by weeds. Near my house is a nursery that specializes in artificial propagation of native species. Many are uncommon forest species that have been line bred for a generation or two. We buy lots of their stuff, and stick it in our backyard. Most do very well if we pay attention to them during the first couple of years, watering and keeping weeds away from them (NO feeding). After 3 years they usually are pretty self sufficient.

Initially our property was a well tended mowed grass yard with scattered well established trees. About 14 years ago we designated some patches for "reforestation" and covered the grass (under the trees) with sheets of cardboard and added about 6 inches of leaves and mulch. We have been adding plants to this system every year since. Most of the time we never water and weeds never seem to come up. Wherever we punch new holes through the leaf litter to the underlying clay for new plants we do see weeds pop up (which we pull). We never rake the leaves away from these established "reforested" places, and after a few years, the area around new plantings fills in and becomes indistinguishable with the rest of the area. At that point plants are pretty self sufficient.


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## emydura (Aug 16, 2011)

A glasshouse is a pretty artificial environment. It is a long way from their natural habitat. There are few selection processes in a glasshouse. We regulate the environmental conditions. We kill all potential predators. Only a very small number of the fittest, strongest seedlings survive in the natural habitat. In the glasshouse we can grow to flowering even the weakest, least vigorous seedlings. 

As you say habitat destruction is the biggest issue. Without a habitat, ex situ conservation will be the only alternative. That may work in the short-term but I don’t think it can go on indefinitely. The longer you require ex situ conservation the less chance these species will eventually be recolonised. 

What do you think would be the best method of recolonisation? Put large flowering size plants back into the natural environment or just release masses of seed and hope through genetic diversity some seedlings may adapt. Or maybe a combination of both?

David


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## Rick (Aug 16, 2011)

emydura said:


> A glasshouse is a pretty artificial environment. It is a long way from their natural habitat. There are few selection processes in a glasshouse. We regulate the environmental conditions. We kill all potential predators. Only a very small number of the fittest, strongest seedlings survive in the natural habitat. In the glasshouse we can grow to flowering even the weakest, least vigorous seedlings.
> 
> As you say habitat destruction is the biggest issue. Without a habitat, ex situ conservation will be the only alternative. That may work in the short-term but I don’t think it can go on indefinitely. The longer you require ex situ conservation the less chance these species will eventually be recolonised.
> 
> ...



The most recent edition of Orchids highlights some efforts on orchid conservation. One article is about orchids in Western Australia.

Seed dispersal is probably not very effective, but imposible to track so hard to say. If the habitat is disturbed (even subtley), the mychorizal symbiots will not be present to germinate seed, and success will be Zero. Putting out adult plants is probably the most successful, and easiest to track, but takes the most time and money to accomplish on a large scale. Putting out established seedlings is probably the best intersection of plant stability and cost. If the plants are highly dependent on the mycorhrizae, then they could end up dead ending in the next generation (just like the seed). Some concern has been expressed on pollinators, but since most orchids are deceptive pollinators, the presence or absence of pollinators is generally not dependent on the presence of the orchid in the first place. However, if the pollinator is gone for whatever reason, then multigenerational success would probably be limited.

The projects I've read about for Western Australia terrestrials (a few for US and European terrestrials too) usually include culture and reintroduction of the mycorhrhizal symbiots with seedlings. 

Concerning the GH factors though, just because we've "selected" for GH conditions doesn't mean the genes are lost in the culls. We've just got some of the plants to alternatively express some genes (that may not be present in all individuals). In order to get something that dependent on specific conditions you would have to select from ex-situ produced mutations.

I work in an environmental toxicology lab with clones of water fleas. These are parthenogenic organisms, and with a high generation rate, lab specific colonies of these guys will be 99% identical genetically in just a few months. But you can take critters from my lab or any other lab and get just about the same response to a wide suite of toxicants. Different labs try to come up with genetic strains resistent to all sorts of different compounds, and generally get no better than +/- 20% over standard responses. This has been going on since the 70's so probably a lot more generations have come and gone compared to the last 100 years of orchid culture. The mutation rate must be much lower than for say fruit flies that may be resistent to certain pesticides. Obviously bacteria have a high enough mutation rate to develop resistances to different antibiotics. But I don't think orchids have that high a generation rate (5 years??) to get enough mutations in a strain to make them genetically incapable of growing in a forest instead of GH.


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