# The controversial and super dark cattleya mossiae ‘willowbrook’ FCC/AOS



## monocotman (Mar 3, 2021)

I bought this plant about a year ago from Regina Elsner just a few months before she retired and gave up her orchid business.
The plant when it arrived was clearly very well established with nine bulbs, two leads and great roots. I was very happy to find a plant as they are as rare as hens teeth in Europe.
It is way darker than any other mossiae and for this reason there are two internet theories as to why this is.
The first is that it is actually x gravesiana, a natural hybrid of mossiae and lueddemanniana.
From looking at the flowers today, I doubt this. They have the texture of cardboard and I suspect that it is a tetraploid. It looks to me to have been bred. The flower is quite unlike a normal mossiae in form as well as colour. In addition it is very early to flower for a mossiae.
The second theory is that it is a line bred clone, over 5-7 generations from the 1940’s and 50’s in the USA when mossiae was a popular cut flower. They grew large populations and it may have been possible then to select and cross the darkest flowers from each generation and over time produce something like this.
It is also possible that one of the parents somewhere along the way had a bit of lueddemanniana blood in it and this contributed to the super dark colour. 
We know from Dr Leslie’s post of the F3 trianae that it is possible to get quite far away from the normal forms of cattleya species quite quickly, so my view is that it is line bred.





The clone has a reputation of being a finicky flowerer and quite capable of producing poor blooms unless well established and mature. I am very happy with this blooming and we will see how things develop. This is day 1 after opening and the scent has yet to kick in.
David


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## dodidoki (Mar 3, 2021)

Very nice clone whatever it is.There is the same problem as with lueddemaniana s/a Cerro Verde.I think it is straight mossiae.


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## dodidoki (Mar 3, 2021)

I took this pic from net.If we put on this the coloration, two yellow patches will remain on the side lobe maybe this is the reason of theory of lueddemanniana blood.


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## monocotman (Mar 3, 2021)

Dodidoki,
The main reason people think it has lueddemanniana blood is the depth of colour. Very few unifoliates have clones with this colour but some of the rubra clones of lueddemanniana are very dark. They are called the larense biotypes and come from a specific geographical region which is very dry. Some of the lueddemannianas in this region grow on cacti! Plus there are some natural hybrids between the two species.
David


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## dodidoki (Mar 3, 2021)

David, many thanks for useful info!It is very rare and famous clone, indeed!


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## NYEric (Mar 3, 2021)

Weird Paph!


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## terryros (Mar 3, 2021)

Thanks, David. I have been looking for the arguments to be pulled together. Mine is in bloom now.It seems obvious that this has been mericloned, probably more than once because we can’t all have divisions of the original. That would create potentially more variation. My plant must be divided this year after the blooming is done. I still can’t get a sheath with mine and maybe that was the case for this blooming of yours?


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## monocotman (Mar 3, 2021)

Terry, this plant has a small sheath on both leads!
David


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## troy (Mar 3, 2021)

paph hybrid??


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## DrLeslieEe (Mar 3, 2021)

Several of these dark mossiaes have surfaced over the last three decades with dark rubra flowers with intense colour. These include 'Panther Creek', 'Michael', 'Friar Tuck' and 'Dark Prince'. Apparently these were from the same seed pod. 

After growing and blooming my 'Willowbrook' for many years, researching and consulting with numerous cattleya experts, I have come to the conclusion that it has been contaminated with lueddemaniana for several reasons:

1. The rubra colour does not exist in nature for mossiaes. No amount of breeding with natural dark clones could produce this color.

2. The substance of the flowers are not delicate like true mossiaes but are firm like lueddemanianas (almost like soft cardboard). Due to this harder substance, the petals are able to hold up more upright and straight.

3. The plant stature of those dark mossieaes have stouter bulbs and more erect narrower leaves than type mossiaes (under optimal conditions). Flowers also fuller due to lueddemaniana's full round shape.

4. The blooming period of these rubras are always 2 to 3 months before ALL mossiaes, closer to lueddemaniana blooming season. 

5. And finally, the glistening texture of the flower in full sunlight mimics the rubra Larense ecotype lueddemanianas, when placed side by side.

With these reasons, it is without a doubt where this plant lies. The question is what to do with this information?

My suggestion is to keep name as is for historical purposes. But when breeding, the Gravesiana should be listed as the parent. 

Interestingly, I heard selfings of these types were very variable.


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## monocotman (Mar 3, 2021)

Dr Leslie, 
many thanks, you are indeed the oracle for unifoliate cattleyas! 
Do you know who produced the pod of all these seedlings?
David


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## DrLeslieEe (Mar 4, 2021)

monocotman said:


> Dr Leslie,
> many thanks, you are indeed the oracle for unifoliate cattleyas!
> Do you know who produced the pod of all these seedlings?
> David


Thanks for your confidence in my unifoliate knowledge lol. 

I don't know (or remember) the source of this original pod, but I will do a little investigating to see if I can find out. It might be a US nursery in the late 70's or early 80's.


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## monocotman (Mar 4, 2021)

Good luck Leslie.
putting my plant breeder’s hat on it would seem that the most likely thing to happen was that a x gravesiana was used somewhere in the early breeding, whether by intent or accidentally, we do not know.
Thousands of mossiaes were imported in the 40’s and 50’s for cut flowers and you would expect the growers to select the best forms and put them to one side. Did they start breeding them then? Imported wild plants were so cheap that it would not be worth it on a large scale but maybe for a select few?
If the odd wild collected x gravesiana made its way into this select bunch due to the deeper flower colour I would not be surprised.
I agree with Leslie that you could cross mossiae for a hundred years, selecting out darker colours and still get nowhere near the colour of willowbrook. The variation simply did not exist for this colour form in the pure species until the lueddemanniana genes appeared in the form of x gravesiana.
From then on it would just be a case of crossing and selecting the darkest forms in each generation until you reach willowbrook. Quite how long this took and how many generations is anyone’s guess.
David


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## Ozpaph (Mar 4, 2021)

Beautiful.
lip markings remind me of lueddemaniana. (but what would i know...)


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## terryros (Mar 4, 2021)

I have an intense urge to change my label to Cattleya Gravesiana ‘Willowbrook’. I won’t be breeding, but I believe in using the best evidence available to update nomenclature. Mistakes happen but we can fix them.


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## DrLeslieEe (Mar 5, 2021)

Just wanted to share my blooming of this plant a few years back in the link below. Back then, I was already playing with this introgression idea.






C. mossiae var rubra 'Willowbrook' FCC/AOS - Orchid Board - Most Complete Orchid Forum on the web !


Despite the controversy about its parentage, it's a beautiful colored flower. One day the mystery of whether it's pure mossiae or x graevesiana (hybri



www.orchidboard.com


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## monocotman (Mar 5, 2021)

Leslie, lovely photos. Do you still grow your plant in leca?
Terry, I would not change the label. It may not strictly be a x gravesiana. At some point the x gravesiana may have been crossed with a true mossiae and that would produce a new grex. Only if the original plant, assuming that it was a x gravesiana had been selfed and then the progeny repeatedly sib crossed could you call it a x gravesiana still. We dont know that.
I agree with Leslie that the original name is still the best.


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## terryros (Mar 5, 2021)

You are right. Likely not pure Gravesiana and maybe not fully diploid. There are probably other famous Cattleya species cultivars that are not 100% pure.


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## monocotman (Mar 5, 2021)

Terry , almost definitely.
Here are a couple of others that are problematic:-
cattleya lueddemanniana ‘ cerro verde’
cattleya jenmanii ‘Fuchs snow’.
These are just the ones we know about.
There are bound to be others that will only be uncovered by genetic testing,
David


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## monocotman (Mar 6, 2021)

Some updated photos taken outside.
The flowers are now more mossiae like, the petals have grown and are now characteristically forward facing. There is a slight scent.



David


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## Ozpaph (Mar 6, 2021)

it IS beautiful.


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## Brabantia (Mar 7, 2021)

All this history reminds me that about 15 years ago I bought a Cattleya luddemaniana from a professional and paid as a botanical Cattleya. When it bloomed for the first time I realized that it was not what I thought it was.The real cattleya luddemaniana has small wings at the top of the column (winged column). Cattleya gravesiana does not have this particularity. See The large flowered Cattleya Species A.A.Chadwick page 80.


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## monocotman (Mar 7, 2021)

Thanks Brabanita, this clone doesn’t have a winged column.
I‘ve tried to catch the glistening texture of the petals that Leslie mentioned, in this photo.


It isn’t easy but you can’t see some of it on the top edge of the extreme left petal.


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## FlaskandFlora (Jun 27, 2022)

DrLeslieEe said:


> Thanks for your confidence in my unifoliate knowledge lol.
> 
> I don't know (or remember) the source of this original pod, but I will do a little investigating to see if I can find out. It might be a US nursery in the late 70's or early 80's.


Leslie, I'm not sure if you ended up figuring out where the initial seed pod came from or not, but I picked up Hausermann's last Willowbrook clone over the weekend and they had a sign on it saying they received the FCC/AOS for it. They might be a good lead to start figuring out the provenance of the plant.


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## BrucherT (Jun 28, 2022)

monocotman said:


> Thanks Brabanita, this clone doesn’t have a winged column.
> I‘ve tried to catch the glistening texture of the petals that Leslie mentioned, in this photo.
> View attachment 26036
> 
> It isn’t easy but you can’t see some of it on the top edge of the extreme left petal.


That intense hue…no filter, I see…just delicious.


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## geoffsharris (Jun 28, 2022)

There are a couple of considerations on what to call this. While we like to think of any given orchid species as this or that species, there are plenty of instances where there is a messy gray zone between taxa. Cattleya aurea and warscewiczii with x hardyana, mossiae and luedemanniana with x gravesiana, gutatta and tigrina which doesn't even have a natural hybrid name and innumerable others. There is potentially some level gene flow between many species and it is likely that some of the most interesting wild clones have some introgression of genes that causes them to be different from the majority of the tipo clones of a species.

Once we humans get our hands on the plants and start breeding them, there is lots of opportunity for information to be lost about what the true parents are. Labels get lost, records can be imperfect and sometimes we come to believe a certain plant is probably a given species without fully knowing its exact origin. There are a number of awarded famous Cattleya plants from Japan that the best explanation for their appearance is that the "hand of god" has moved genes around between species and backcrossed them. Whether this was purposefully or accidental or originated in the wild or in captivity are the more interesting questions.

I'm with Leslie that 'Willobrook' is probably like walkeriana 'Pendentive'. It isn't a good representative of the mossiae taxon. It is most likely a plant of unknown hybrid origin that has significant mossiae in its heritage. As far as I know, no wild plants that are this dark have ever been found for mossiae. The exact story of how it came to be is the open question.

What ever you want to call it, it is beautiful and well grown - congrats. For any breeders out there, probably wouldn't self it or do a "sib" cross and call it mossiae. Probably best divided or mericloned.


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## Guldal (Jun 28, 2022)

What intense and saturated colouring in the last photos, David!


dodidoki said:


> Very nice clone whatever it is.


A point of view, which I find very difficult to argue with!


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## KyushuCalanthe (Jun 28, 2022)

Looks like the ultimate corsage orchid of my high school years!


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## NEslipper (Jun 28, 2022)

Interesting discussion here. Something I’ve been thinking a lot about is how our expectations of the mean influence our perception of what constitutes a “true” species. Most outcomes in biology can be thought about in terms of a distribution of outcomes. I’m thinking of the standard “bell curve”. In the case of an orchid cross, the vast majority of plants will be average, and those are the plants we encounter the most, and are most familiar with. However, there will be a small number of plants at either extreme - we’ve all waited years to bloom out a cross with spectacular parents, only to bloom a truly hideous flower. At the other end of the spectrum, there will be outliers of remarkable and unexpected quality. I guess the point of line-breeding is to take those remarkable plants and cross them for future generations. The orchid zone was able to do this extremely well, and in only a few short generations markedly improve some notable species (rothschildianum, henryanum, fairrieanum, besseae, etc…) to the point there was sometimes controversy around the origin of those plants. Throw in the fact that plants are weird, for example there can be ploidy issues that manifest in unpredictable ways, and I wonder if sometimes there’s a rush to judge plants that just don’t fit our expectations for an average plant as something that must have been “improved” by other means. This isn’t meant as a criticism of anyone, just something I’ve been musing about, and I would be interested to hear input from others with more hands-on knowledge of plant breeding/hybridizing/genetics.


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## geoffsharris (Jun 29, 2022)

Hi David,

I've never thought to ask about the growth habit of this clone. Does it grow like mossiae in that it starts growing a new lead and roots after blooming in May/June and then rest for nearly 6-8 months? Mossiae usually blooms from a brown sheath and should only make a single growth per season.


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## Carmella.carey (Jun 30, 2022)

Amazing David!
Patrick


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## monocotman (Jun 30, 2022)

Geoff,
it grows just like a mossiae. it’s making its new growths now,
David


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## geoffsharris (Jun 30, 2022)

Thanks David.

Was reading Carl Withner's Cattleya book last night and in it he notes that mossiae only expresses a single anthocyanin pigment hence the generally lighter color of the flowers. As far as I know, nobody has sequenced the genes involved with producing the various anthocyanin pigments in orchids. There are two sets of genes involved, the genes coding the enzymes that make the various pigments and the genes coding the transcription factors that drive the expression of the genes. This is why there are two different mutations that can create alba flowers. When parent plants each with the different type of alba mutations are crossed, they will produce colored type flowers. Suppose it could be possible that the genes for making additional anthocyanins are there in the mossiae genome but the machinery for expression is broken rather than the key genes for particular enzymes have been deleted from the genome. Possible that an introgression or mutation occurred at some point that enabled their expression, but the fact that these dark colored flowers showed up in captivity at the same time, with several clones with very similar flower shape and other floral characteristics suggests genes from somewhere outside of the mossiae genome and these dark plants were all the result of a single cross. How the genes got there and how long ago is the mystery. Would be super interesting to track down the cross history. My best guess is that it represents a partially introgressed x gravesiana selfing or a cross back onto mossiae. In the wild in 1-2 generations this trait would likely disappear as there would likely not be a selective pressure for the dark color and the type plants would be the dominant source of partner genes. In captivity if we keep selecting for the dark color over multiple generations, we could fix that trait such that plants have almost totally the mossiae genome with the new pigment genes or the ability to express ones already existing in the genome. This would be not unlike humans with all of us having some amount of neanderthal genes floating around in our genome.

This somewhat messy genetic history is actually super common in orchids. For example, the gene flow between warscewiczii, x hardyana and aurea is certainly what drives the variability in some of the more interesting "warscewiczii" clones in existence, many of which have come from the wild. Biology is always a bit more complex than we would like to fit our neat definitions. I'm always working on refining my understanding of what exactly constitutes a species and plants like this challenge ones thinking.

Very cool and beautiful plant. Thanks for sharing.


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