# Phal bellina - blue



## bigleaf (Sep 21, 2011)

This line of Phal bellina originated from Japan - but this group of seedlings is propagated by a Taiwanese nursery.







Is it possible that there is Phal violacea in this flower? I am just asking. I do not know.

A friend of mine, AOS judge, came to my greenhouse yesterday. He said the fragrance is spicy - not as sweet as Phal bellina. I am going to take a good whiff today to see if I can tell the difference. I have both Phal bellina and Phal violacea in flower.

There is an article in IPA proposing to put Phal bellina and Phal violacea back together as Phal violacea. It's a mess since the two species were split. But it will also be more mess when two are combined again since there are already hybrids registered with Phal bellina.


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## Shiva (Sep 21, 2011)

bigleaf said:


> There is an article in IPA proposing to put Phal bellina and Phal violacea back together as Phal violacea. It's a mess since the two species were split. But it will also be more mess when two are combined again since there are already hybrids registered with Phal bellina.



Very nice! But I don't believe that one more mess will make much of a difference in the orchid world. :crazy:


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## Ricky (Sep 21, 2011)

Shiva said:


> But I don't believe that one more mess will make much of a difference in the orchid world. :crazy:



Lol, that´s right. 
As long as pink plants are named violet (violacea) and violet plants named blue - who cares about names? 

But the flower is nice - it doesn´t matter what the name is.


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## W. Beetus (Sep 21, 2011)

Stunning colors! Beautiful.


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## SlipperFan (Sep 21, 2011)

If I remember correctly, Christenson says that violacea has a spicey smell while bellina's is more lemony. He also said that from photos he's seen of the white bellina, it's often hard to tell it from violacea. That's probably true of the blue one, also. This is all in his Phal book.

By the way, I don't see a flower in this thread.


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## cnycharles (Sep 22, 2011)

! yes there is a large picture. .. I have had my doubts as to whether or not there actually was a blue bellina unless radical selfings have created this type of flower. that said I have far too little experience to know for sure!


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## Roth (Sep 22, 2011)

There has been 3 wild collected plants of bellina coerulea, I saw them about 10 years ago+. One is still in Malaysia, one died, and the third one was sold to Krairit Vejvarut by a Malay trader called Cheah Wah Sang for about 8000USD. The third one has been selfed, and died.

The first one and third one had progeny that has been sold already. The F1 was unstable ( some coerulea, some standard bellinas). Suddenly, about 4-5 years ago, in Taiwan, several growers claimed that in Japan they were propagated bellina coerulea from a different wild plant, with a much better flower quality ( the jungle ones were genuine but ugly shape). They were offering seedlings from that fourth plant. No one has ever seen the Japanese plant, and no one in Japan knew that there was a bellina coerulea around in Japan ( except seedlings from Thailand and Malaysia). 

So we don't know for sure if the bellina coerulea sold are progeny from the two genuine jungle plants from Malaysia, or Samera, or a mix of both. I tend to think that some are Samera Fx's bred with a violacea coerulea and a good shape normal bellina.


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## bigleaf (Sep 22, 2011)

FWIW - this flower is very different from Phal Samera (bellina v coerulea x violacea v coerulea). See picture here.






From appearance, this looks like a valid Phal bellina because Phal Samera would have a wider area of the coerulea pigments.

The origin of this flower is from Malaysia. Taiwanese nurseries made sib cross of selected flowers from a flask purchased from a Japanese nursery. And the Japanese nursery imported flasks from Malaysia.


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## cnycharles (Sep 22, 2011)

it's my general unknowledgeable opinion that if someone had one or two plants of such a rare color variety, that if they did make some seedlings, they would end up being so expensive that they wouldn't be for sale to the general population  . 

I had an extremely nice 'violacea alba' that I got as a seedling from malaysia a number of years ago and when it flowered, was told by knowledgeable people that it was 'too nice' to be a violacea alba, and likely a hybrid. I still loved the flower, but wouldn't enter it in our shows as a species. unfortunately it didn't survive my experiment putting some phal species into grodan rockwool gro cubes  . So, I am skeptical about new unusual varieties


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## bigleaf (Sep 22, 2011)

cnycharles said:


> it's my general unknowledgeable opinion that if someone had one or two plants of such a rare color variety, that if they did make some seedlings, they would end up being so expensive that they wouldn't be for sale to the general population  .



Not always true. I remember a few years ago when Phal cornu-cervi f. chattaladae was expensive - several hundred dollars for a mature plant. Now the seedlings and clones are available for under $35.

Clones and seedlings of blue bellina are available for $35 or less. 

In a few more years when fewer people are propagating this variety - the price will go up because it is scarce/rare.

If you can get seeds and they are produced oversea - the cost is cheaper and you can make many plants available at affordable price. Here in the US - cost of flask/shipping is much higher so fewer people are willing to make many seedlings of one species.


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## SlipperFan (Sep 22, 2011)

Interesting. The pictures show up now, but they didn't earlier tonight!

I agree -- this one looks like bellina. I wouldn't mind paying $35 for a large seedling of this.


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## biothanasis (Sep 23, 2011)

Wonderful!!!


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## Roth (Sep 23, 2011)

bigleaf said:


> From appearance, this looks like a valid Phal bellina because Phal Samera would have a wider area of the coerulea pigments.
> 
> The origin of this flower is from Malaysia. Taiwanese nurseries made sib cross of selected flowers from a flask purchased from a Japanese nursery. And the Japanese nursery imported flasks from Malaysia.



Then it comes from a close friend of me in Malaysia 

Samera selfings can give F1 that look anywhere from bellina to violacea, and F2 could well look like straight bellina with very minor differences, like the fake paphiopedilum primulinum in the trade...



bigleaf said:


> Clones and seedlings of blue bellina are available for $35 or less.
> 
> In a few more years when fewer people are propagating this variety - the price will go up because it is scarce/rare.
> 
> If you can get seeds and they are produced oversea - the cost is cheaper and you can make many plants available at affordable price. Here in the US - cost of flask/shipping is much higher so fewer people are willing to make many seedlings of one species.



No, in fact the first flasks of bellina coerulea from Krairit were sold for 15000THB, and in Malaysia was over a thousands ringgit. Then they made more, and more, and they dropped the price, plus the buyers already had propagated the flasks. But the first flasks of selfings were really very expensive ( like stonei var. album, before it was 1500USD for a flask of 5 seedlings, this year only 150USD/25 seedlings apparently...)

The phals flasks, the price can crash immediately, if some people get the flasks, even of exceedingly rare forms, they send back the flask to another (rogue) lab in Thailand, and you can get a flask of 40 Phalaenopsis clone for 200THB. If the flask you gave had protocorms still inside, it is only 110THB to get as many flasks out of a single expensive flask... That's the danger of the rare forms of Phalaenopsis.

For violacea alba from Malaysia, apparently there are no pure ones, and that's the Malaysian breeders that say that themselves, even during private talks. 

They found only two jungle plants, one found by Michael Ooi, that bloomed and died, but was crossed onto several things ( including micholitzii...), and another wild one found about 7 years ago, from Cameron Highlands. 

The hybrids with micholitzii in the background were propagated and sold everywhere, some look like great violacea alba, now for the violacea alba, there has been a gap between the 80's, where violacea alba was found and died the first time, and the middle of the 90's where Malaysia nurseries started to sell a lot of 'violacea alba' flasks. No one will ever know for sure if there are violacea alba in cultivation, or if they are all hybrids.

We should just sometimes enjoy the plants and not try too much to understand, especially with phalaenopsis... Many 'wild plants' sold were not from the wild, and many seedlings were Fx's of hybrids, this for ages as phalaenopsis are easy to flask and propagate, so we will never be able to know for sure.


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## Drorchid (Sep 23, 2011)

Hi Peter, 

Here is a picture of one of our bellina coerulea's. This one does have the typical "bellina" fragrance:






Robert


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