# Ctsm. Penang; Ctsm. schmidtianum x Orchidglade; Cycnoches sp.



## Kavanaru (Oct 9, 2011)

High Season for Catasetinae in Riedisheim 

Catasetum Penang 'Capanaparo' 
First time blooming... the Clonal name is given because it looks very similar to the Catasetum pileatum found near the Capanaparo River in Venezuela



Catasetum Penang 'Capanaparo'  by kavanaru, on Flickr



Catasetum Penang 'Capanaparo' by kavanaru, on Flickr

Cstm. schmidtianum x Orchidglade. Unregistered hybrid with (IMO) very interesting flowers.



Catasetum schmidtianum x Orchidglade  by kavanaru, on Flickr



Catasetum schmidtianum x Orchidglade  by kavanaru, on Flickr

Cycnoches sp. Especies from Panama, purchased as Cycnoches aureum, but I think it is probably Cycnoches powellii or a variation of Cycnoches guttulatum. Flowers are twice bigger than those of my other Cycnoches guttulatum and lighter in color.



Cycnoches sp  by kavanaru, on Flickr



Cycnoches sp  by kavanaru, on Flickr


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## tocarmar (Oct 9, 2011)

Very Nice!! I would love to have the last one!! If you divide it send me a peice!!


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## Shiva (Oct 9, 2011)

I would take all of them Ramón. You are my inspiration for buying more catasetums and cycnoches.


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## Paph_LdyMacBeth (Oct 9, 2011)

Each one more excellent than the last!


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## SlipperFan (Oct 9, 2011)

I have to put my eyes back into my head now.


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## W. Beetus (Oct 9, 2011)

I really like the first one!!


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## paphioboy (Oct 9, 2011)

Yay! A plant named after my hometown..   Great blooms on all of them..


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## NYEric (Oct 9, 2011)

Nice, thanks for sharing.


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## Jorch (Oct 10, 2011)

Hard to decide which one I like most! They are all beautiful :clap:


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## biothanasis (Oct 10, 2011)

Very beautiful all of them!!!


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## Roth (Oct 10, 2011)

I like the cychnoches...

For the catasetum Penang, I am a bit sceptical about its identity... Nice flower however.

I have seen some of them already that were pale ( all from Jumbo Orchids), and I think it is either a backcross to something else ( like Penang with normal pileatum back to normal pileatum, or something like that, but even so it would not be so pale...), or another hybrid.

Jumbo Orchids and a lot of hobbyists bought catasetum, sometimes very expensive 'breeding plants' from Brazil and Venezuela, but there are many not so honest sellers ( the same for the Brazilian cattleyas) that made already a lot of hybrids and pass them as species. I know as a fact that I bought some cattleya walkeriana, trianae, and when I made the selfings, though the parents were really FCC quality, the selfings showed the mother plants were hybrids. I know it was the same with some catasetum too ( there were catasetum macrocarpum all red at a point, those were hybrids as well...). Breeding catasetum in the Tropics is very easy, in fact they produce a lot of female flowers, and the germination rate is tremendously high nevertheless...

But the real Penang is pileatum x Susan Fuchs, and they are red, dark uniform red for some made with the pileatum 'Imperial', and spotted dark red with the normal pileatum...


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## Kavanaru (Oct 10, 2011)

Roth said:


> I like the cychnoches...
> 
> For the catasetum Penang, I am a bit sceptical about its identity... Nice flower however.
> 
> ...



I need to disagree with you on this point. Indeed, the most common Ctsm. Penang are "red" as tehy were originally made with pileatum var imperiale, and probably using as well red spotted Ctsm expansum. However, both species involved in this cross are extremely variable, and also the most common pileatum are actually pure white**, and the most common expansum are actually light green with some yellow. Therefore, as well as teh two species involved, Ctsm. Penang, as well as Ctsm Orchidglade and Ctsm Susan Fuchs can be anything from pure white to completely red, with any variation on reds, yellows and greens in between. 

**(this is not var. alba, as usually sold, but the tipo of the species - it is pretty hard to find colored or spotted pileatum in nature! - it is also misconception, introduced by teh taiwanes sellers with mislabelled plants, that the normal pileatum is spotted. Most spotted pileatum sold or found in Europe, USA and Asia are actually anything in the "complex" hybrids expansumxpileatum: bold spots are not be found in pileatum!)

The similarities to pileatum are to be expected in this cross as it is (((expansum x pileatum) x expansum) x pileatum), and it is not common to see plants tending more to one or the other species, even plants from the same pod. The pileatum I mentionned coming from the region Rio Capanaparo/Rio Cinaruco in south-western Venezuela, tend to have some red spots (note: this is teh region where var. imperiale comes from!) as an influence of the gene introgression from Ctsm. macrocarpum (these pielatum are commonly called "tipo Splendens, indicating that they are not considered 100% pileatum, but which are so close to it that even breed "true pileatum" - part of the very complex "Ctsm. xtapiriceps complex"). Catasetum macrocarpum, is normally green/yellow, but in this region is not uncommon to find plants with different levels of red coloration (complete red or spotted!) on the lips and petals. A similar situation is seen with Ctsm. expansum and Ctsm. macroglossum in the "Ctsm. xsodiroi complex"). And many other "Ctsm. XXX Complexes" as well... (you though slipper's taxonomy is complicated? start with the Ctsm. copmplexes and you give up )

One way to determine teh presence of expansum in a "Ctsm. pileatum" is the presence of callus in teh center of the labellum (does not exist in pileatum!) and teh presence of bold (often "swollen") spotts, which are actually common from expansum with macroglossum genes.

The plant shown here is a cross of Ctsm. pileatum 'Oro Verde' (which, as an interesting note: when cross with other pileatums normally do not transmit the strong green/yellow colors to teh progeny) and Ctsm. Susan Fuchs 'Pintada' (a light colored form of Ctsm. Susan Fuchs with some red spots on the lip, but not too many). The cross was made by a friend of mine in Brazil.


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## bcostello (Oct 10, 2011)

Love them all. Fred Clarke of SVO came to my OS meeting yesterday and bought lots of goodies to sell. I increased my collection of catasetum crosses by 3.


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## Roth (Oct 10, 2011)

Kavanaru said:


> I need to disagree with you on this point. Indeed, the most common Ctsm. Penang are "red" as tehy were originally made with pileatum var imperiale, and probably using as well red spotted Ctsm expansum. However, both species involved in this cross are extremely variable, and also the most common pileatum are actually pure white**, and the most common expansum are actually light green with some yellow. Therefore, as well as teh two species involved, Ctsm. Penang, as well as Ctsm Orchidglade and Ctsm Susan Fuchs can be anything from pure white to completely red, with any variation on reds, yellows and greens in between.



I am afraid that you are right for that one...

If they redid the cross with the white pileatum, definitely it would give this flower... Orchidglade JOD actually gives some nearly white progeny when selfed. so 2 generations later, it can give that definitely.

There is a part of the pileatum Imperial 'Pierre Couret' that I could well be the last one to know too... Maurice Lecoufle gave me the story one evening in another life, long time ago...

The first 'imperial' type to have been found were imported to the USA in the 60's. One got an award eventually as 'Ruby', and there were several at Rod McLellan that were documented. They were long time gone.

Pierre Couret brought back not only one plant, but a couple dozen plants. He passed those to Maurice Lecoufle to see which ones could have a potential for propagation and breeding. There were several spotted/flushed plants, and one dark red one. However, the dark red got a rot in the rhizome, and only the top half of the new bulb was alive. So they decided to clone it immediately, using the protocol for Cymbidium. They got a first batch, that they bloomed and released, 100-200 plants. I did that in the 90's again, and indeed catasetum is very easy to clone using even a Vacin and went with soja peptone ( Don Wimber's favorite media...).

They did not make a huge batch, because though Vacherot and Lecoufle were instrumental in getting tissue culture in the orchid world ( through Walter Bertsch, paying Morel a rent to make the technology commercially viable, and more, that's another very long story), they were stupid enough not to see the potential for the mass market, and tried to keep the prices way up. They were using tissue culture to propagate elite plants, and make small series of 50-200+ for the deluxe market.

One guy one time came to see them in the 70's and offered them to join venture, to make a lot and a lot of pot plant. they declined the offer, deemed foolish to make cheap plants. This man was Jan Post, the owner of Floricultura :clap: who did not do so bad business afterwards, but he lost time in research, and they lost a massive potential. Anyway....

When they woke up and started to use their technology for pot plant, it was really too late, the markets were taken pretty much everywhere. 

The funny thing too, they made one time the tissue culture of the Pierre Couret, then never again, until exhaustion of their stocks, even if the market was demanding those plants. I don't think they still have any of those original plants of Pierre Couret today. 

As an aside note, some were virused with ORSV, as they were grown in another nursery with thousands of cymbidium, and apparently the workers screwed up somewhere. Most were clean however.

Their cousin, Marcel Lecoufle, made even better. One funny hybrid, Paphiopedilum Pinnochio, he made many seed capsules, and sold them for cheap to the Netherlands, as it was 'not interesting'. I know he lost fortunes with that, as shortly afterwards Pinnochio became a best seller... A couple of decades earlier, he did even better, a lot of stupid African Violets hybrids, he just sold the whole bench after a while. Most of the saintpaulia in the trade today can be traced back to his plants and hybrids... :rollhappy::rollhappy::rollhappy:

So back to the pileatum imperial, it has always been rumored that it was a kind of xTapiriceps, but then Pierre Couret and others involved said it was a colony of deep red pileatum. It was not, and the other plants were discarded, as Vacherot and Lecoufle were very strict, and kept only high standard plant in those days.

There has never ever been any division released therefore, only clone of imperial Pierre Couret, from the beginning.

It is funny to know too that some Pierre Couret plants ended up at Jones and Scully too, they were partners for a long time with Vacherot and Lecoufle.

Later in the 80's a funny guy, Michael Ooi spent a lot of time at Vacherot and Lecoufle, he bought plants, he sold plants. Amongst them, the Pierre Couret, so the first Catasetum Penang were for sure made with the Pierre Couret.



> **(this is not var. alba, as usually sold, but the tipo of the species - it is pretty hard to find colored or spotted pileatum in nature! - it is also misconception, introduced by teh taiwanes sellers with mislabelled plants, that the normal pileatum is spotted. Most spotted pileatum sold or found in Europe, USA and Asia are actually anything in the "complex" hybrids expansumxpileatum: bold spots are not be found in pileatum!)



That's why I had a doubt when I saw the picture, because this kind of hybrids of pileatum usually in Europe come from Jumbo Orchids and another Taiwanese nurseries, who usually use few plants ( Orchidglade Jack of Diamonds and its mutation, etc...), and Penang should have been red then... especially since the Taiwanese now tend to breed at the tetraploid level, which lessens the chances of getting back recessive traits...



> The plant shown here is a cross of Ctsm. pileatum 'Oro Verde' (which, as an interesting note: when cross with other pileatums normally do not transmit the strong green/yellow colors to teh progeny) and Ctsm. Susan Fuchs 'Pintada' (a light colored form of Ctsm. Susan Fuchs with some red spots on the lip, but not too many). The cross was made by a friend of mine in Brazil.



Actually I have seen several Oro Verde, never knew which one is the correct one... It has been awarded a really long time ago and several plants are sold under that name today by the way... Would be really curious to know which one was the real original one ( should be a green and yellow/golden flower, but even so there are several in the trade). pileatum is one of the few species I like in catasetum ( expansum is another one...)


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## Kavanaru (Oct 10, 2011)

jeje, yeap... I know the story of Pierre Couret very good... I have spent many many many years trying to get a piece of Ctsm. pileatum 'Pierre Couret' (knowing it would be a clone, as teh original plant probably does not exist anymore - at least not to my knowledge) it was not but until last year I got one, but has not bloomed yet (from SVO)... the reason? those first red pileatum are the plants that hooked me into orchids collection... I had some of them in my hand as a child, and was in shock... I knew only the white ones that grew near my the house of my parents... Even more impressive was to see an imperiale in the wild for the first time... 

There was an even more amazing pileatum, which got lost. It was also found by Pierre Couret in Apure. An "egg yolk" yellow pileatum. It was amazing, and the best yellow pileatum I have ever seen in my whole life... the plant disappeared/died in Pierre Couret's collection... there is only pictures of it left... 

Nowadays, everybody is more or less in agreement that most red pileatum or hybrids are offspring of Ctsm. pileatum 'Pierre Couret'... so the first Ctsm. Penang.

Bela Vista Orchids in Brazil is re-doing a lot of these hybrids with "modern" plants, as well as new Catasetum Hybrids. Very interesting plants coming out of that (the schmidtianum x Orchidglade shown above if from them!) Jumbo and SVO are strong in intergenerics, but have limited resources of plants...

Af for catasetinae in Europe, well... that's the nightmare for Catasetinae lovers.. most plants are mislabelled, and very often the nurseries do not know what they have (e.g. I have bought ca. 9 Cycnoches chlorochilon, and not a single was chlorochilon! why I bought that many? because I normally get rare plants for the price of "common" chlorochilon  - same with Catasetum... I have now one "Cycnoches chlorochilon" spiking.. funnily it looks very much like it will be Ctsm. tabulare, which I do not have yet ). But this is often true as well for plants coming from Asia (Jumbo Orchids has a mess with their names!) and some plants from USA...

Indeed, 'Oro Verde' is long story... no one can tell you where the plant originally came from, it has been cloned like hell, and you get variations from those 1000s clones... what the original plant really looked like? you can only guess... However, most if not all the green/yellow pileatum are progeny or clones of 'Oro Verde', I do not know anyone who has ever seen a pileatum with those color in nature, neither many plants with such a huge lip as 'Oro Verde'... as I said before, you normally find whites... Ctsm. pileatum 'Green Gold' (actually green and white) was for sure result of a mutation during the cloning of 'Oro Verde'.

and yes, pileatum is the top ofthe line  like the Paph rothschildianum for the Catasetum... but there are also some other less known species which are just fantastic!! Ctsm. tigrinum (beautifully white flowers, although on the small side), a good Ctsm. tenebrosum or Ctsm napoense are just fantastic!


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## Fabrice (Oct 10, 2011)

Nice flowers!

The cycnoches, It could be simply peruvianum no?


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## Kavanaru (Oct 10, 2011)

Fabrice said:


> Nice flowers!
> 
> The cycnoches, It could be simply peruvianum no?



no, peruvianum's lip is different and comes also from a different region...


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