# Phrag. caudatum 'Perfection'



## paphioland (Apr 8, 2008)

30.5 inch petals. Very Large flowers for caudatum


----------



## Elena (Apr 8, 2008)

Wow, just fantastic!


----------



## paphioland (Apr 8, 2008)

oops should be in Phrag section


----------



## goldenrose (Apr 8, 2008)

:drool: Beaut-I-ful!


----------



## NYEric (Apr 8, 2008)

Paph!!???! Traitor! Hell of a display BTW, Is that a del album hiding at the bottom!?


----------



## SlipperFan (Apr 8, 2008)

Very impressive!


----------



## Candace (Apr 8, 2008)

The two caudatums I've bought have turned out to be Grandes  Is this one awardable?


----------



## practicallyostensible (Apr 8, 2008)

Candace said:


> The two caudatums I've bought have turned out to be Grandes  Is this one awardable?



Happened to me too. Bummer.


----------



## paphioland (Apr 8, 2008)

It is bigger in every dimension than any awarded caudatum and it has four flowers. Manchan of Tokyo Orchid Nursery is a JOGA judge in Japan. He saw it in person and told me it was a gold medal plant. He was very impressed. I trust his "eye" up there with a couple of people in the world for slippers. So the better question. Is it a really good one? Yes it is. Is it awardable who knows.


----------



## paphioland (Apr 8, 2008)

Sorry about your caudatums.


----------



## Rick (Apr 8, 2008)

That looks great! How long have you been growing it?


----------



## rdlsreno (Apr 8, 2008)

Very beautiful!!


Ramon


----------



## orcoholic (Apr 8, 2008)

Believe it or not, this phrag only got a second place ribbon. i don't think it got an AOS award, but am not positive on that.


----------



## Rick (Apr 8, 2008)

orcoholic said:


> Believe it or not, this phrag only got a second place ribbon. i don't think it got an AOS award, but am not positive on that.



Ribbon judging awards do not always correlate to AOS awards. Ribbons are generally given to the best/showiest entry in the class that shows up to that particular show. Whether or not its pulled for AOS judging will depend on the diligence of the owner (he/she can take it to the judges), or if a judge knowledgeable enough of the award history of this species notices the plant and checks it out against the standards.

Although every entry in a show is looked at by at least a couple of judges, if its a big show with hundreds of entries then even great plants may not get the time of day for a thorough AOS critique.


----------



## Candace (Apr 8, 2008)

Yup, I couldn't have said it any better, Rick. There have been plenty of times I've had some pretty underwhelming plants take the blue ribbon, only because the competition in a particular category wasn't outstanding. I've also had the opposite happen where I walk into plant registration thinking I've got a pretty spectacular plant...only to see what I'm competing against and my 15 spike whatever looks rather pale against its 35 spike competitor.


----------



## paphioland (Apr 8, 2008)

Candace said:


> Yup, I couldn't have said it any better, Rick. There have been plenty of times I've had some pretty underwhelming plants take the blue ribbon, only because the competition in a particular category wasn't outstanding. I've also had the opposite happen where I walk into plant registration thinking I've got a pretty spectacular plant...only to see what I'm competing against and my 15 spike whatever looks rather pale against its 35 spike competitor.



This was at a show. I got two AMs and this caudatum was not awarded. It is really amazing LOL. To be honest there were many plants in there that should have been awarded.

The local ribbons really are very subjective and usually given by very inexperienced people. They tend to give ribbons to the professional growers since the local judge doesn't know what is good they just feel that will show that they know something. A professional grower asked if he could have a pot complex. I gave him the poorest red spotted I got. I got 8 pot plants incase I needed fillers. Guess what it, got first place spotted over my highly select spotted clones. The second place spotted was my pot plant spotted LOL. The two highly select clones nothing. It is a real joke. Although to be fair the best spotted 'grand' was fading but I had three others that were better than the pot plants, 'wow' was there. The other thing was that I had a select delenatii album that was much much bigger and better than a professional growers and his got first place. Joe Kunich's average richteri got best phrag species over the caudatum. On top of that the best paph was given to an average three flower St Swithin. There was a pretty good Richiardianum. The best one I have seen and it got nothing. I guess my display was very poorly put together with no lights in the beginning but the awards should be about the plants. Most of my whites had faded by the time of the show also.


----------



## Candace (Apr 8, 2008)

Ken, when you say professional grower I take this to mean a commercial grower/vendor? In our society commercial folks aren't allowed to compete with us. They have their own category. Best commercial display etc. 

Be sure to post your AM's. Congrats!


----------



## paphioland (Apr 8, 2008)

Rick said:


> if a judge knowledgeable enough of the award history of this species notices the plant and checks it out against the standards.
> 
> Although every entry in a show is looked at by at least a couple of judges, if its a big show with hundreds of entries then even great plants may not get the time of day for a thorough AOS critique.



This couldn't be truer. There were 58 plants in my display. I think it was overwhelming for them


----------



## paphioland (Apr 8, 2008)

Candace said:


> Ken, when you say professional grower I take this to mean a commercial grower/vendor? In our society commercial folks aren't allowed to compete with us. They have their own category. Best commercial display etc.
> 
> Be sure to post your AM's. Congrats!


Yes the commercial growers and all the local judges knew which exhibit was the prof growers. I don't mind competing with them. The quality of their plants was nothing special although they are phenomenal exhibitors and display makers.

Thanks Candace. The awarded plants were nice but easy to judge and not that rare. They were no where near the best plants in my display.

I honestly feel bad for the plants that were spectacular and were ignored. I feel like they got slighted. LOL. It is not me I just feel like it is an injustice against truth.LOL But Ricks statement really is accurate and well said.


----------



## paphioland (Apr 8, 2008)

some of the good plants that I am posting were not in good enough condition to display so that is good that their feelings weren't hurt.LOL


----------



## paphlady (Apr 9, 2008)

paphioland said:


> I honestly feel bad for the plants that were spectacular and were ignored. I feel like they got slighted. LOL. It is not me I just feel like it is an injustice against truth.LOL But Ricks statement really is accurate and well said.



I wouldn't if I were you (feel bad for the spectacular plants). IMHO, it's better for a "FCC quality" plant not be given any award than to be given a lesser award (let's say a HCC). I think the lesser is more insulting to the plant and the owner than no award. Consider yourself lucky with the caudatum. 

As for "injustice against truth", it has always been there. One of the biggest problems with AOS judging is that the judges are expected to be able to judge every types of orchids. That's mission impossible. No one in this world has that ability. You have people who specialize in certain groups (e.g. Paph, Catt, Den, etc.). I doubt a person who grows only Cattleya can judge a Paph (give it an award it really deserves).


----------



## Roth (Apr 9, 2008)

paphlady said:


> I wouldn't if I were you (feel bad for the spectacular plants). IMHO, it's better for a "FCC quality" plant not be given any award than to be given a lesser award (let's say a HCC). I think the lesser is more insulting to the plant and the owner than no award. Consider yourself lucky with the caudatum.
> 
> As for "injustice against truth", it has always been there. One of the biggest problems with AOS judging is that the judges are expected to be able to judge every types of orchids. That's mission impossible. No one in this world has that ability. You have people who specialize in certain groups (e.g. Paph, Catt, Den, etc.). I doubt a person who grows only Cattleya can judge a Paph (give it an award it really deserves).



I happens to have a FCC plant with me, and I wanted to get it awarded by the AOS at that time... Harold Koopowitz told me himself it was better not to do it, because if the judges were not knowledgeable they would give that plan an HCC, and I would be "in deep ****"  (original quote). He proved to be right, I showed a callosum vini that was really beautiful ( even Hanajima who happened to be at that show and was still a huge nusery, and some more California growers said it was outstanding), that just got an HCC ( and the best species in show at the same time). 

Great caudatum, with those leaves I would not be surprised if it turned out to be a tetraploid...

Some people do not bother anymore to get their plants judged, just take very goo pictures and that's all. I think on my side that it is better. For the micranthum KwangSee, I showed one at the RHS, and 3 at the DOG. One at the DOG got an SM, fine... but the 2 other ones and the RHS ones were rejected, and I learned after that the judges found they had huge flowers and perfect shape, BUT the pouch was not dark enough ( of course !). One famous professionnal grower from the USA submitted plants to an European judging team ( I would not say which one, only that they speak english...). None of them were awarded, though they were gorgeous. After the show, I was taking breakfast, where 1, then 2, then 3 judges asked for divisons. He sent them to hell oke: telling them that if they were not award quality, he would not bother them with divisions. Another time, pollen from an entire inflorescence disappeared ( a rothschildianum as I remember), only judges had access to the plants. There are plenty of stories like that that eventually made people disappointed with the judging systems anywhere in the world.

If one thinks very carefully, Terry Root got very, very few awards, for sure less than 30/year over the last 10 years, if not even less. He did not dare to bring the plants to be awarded, that's it. He knows their quality, he has pictures ( sometimes good, sometimes... :drool: but still know what it is), trusting customers and that's it. Of course, many of his plants are awarded, but not by him. The rothschildianum AQ/AOS was a big joke as well. Some FCC roths were awarded low award, and some "lower quality" ones were awarded FCC in his batch ( though all of them were gorgeous, no doubt !).


----------



## Park Bear (Apr 9, 2008)

award or not, I still like it


----------



## Corbin (Apr 9, 2008)

those are some long petals


----------



## paphioland (Apr 9, 2008)

Sanderianum said:


> I happens to have a FCC plant with me, and I wanted to get it awarded by the AOS at that time... Harold Koopowitz told me himself it was better not to do it, because if the judges were not knowledgeable they would give that plan an HCC, and I would be "in deep ****"  (original quote). He proved to be right, I showed a callosum vini that was really beautiful ( even Hanajima who happened to be at that show and was still a huge nusery, and some more California growers said it was outstanding), that just got an HCC ( and the best species in show at the same time).
> 
> Great caudatum, with those leaves I would not be surprised if it turned out to be a tetraploid...
> 
> ...



Xavier you could not be closer to the truth here. That is why I don't show my plants often if at all. I do what you seem to do. I document the bloom time, a photo and accurate measurements. I usually include some comments about the flower. I know the quality of my plants. 

This time I wanted to have the experiece of making a display but showing plants is not where my interests are.

I have a true story of an experiment where a friend of mine brought their album variation of a plant much bigger and better than any color form I have ever seen to test the judges. It was easily FCC quality. It was awarded a low HCC. It was just amazing. We got home measured the flower correctly they had shaved of *over* a cm in many of the dimensions. The very next morning my friend gets a call from an anonymous person wanting to buy the whole plant expecting to pay an HCC price (this was almost certainly a judge because who else would know). My friend told them the plant was 10k to stick it to them. When they said that was too much he hung up. 

You are also right the roth awarding of the rex x mm clones from the OZ was a joke. There was no reason as to why some got awards and others didn't. Even the level of the award showed no correlation. I personally like 'wide horizon' the best but I think it got an hcc. lol. Some really great ones weren't even awarded.

Terry doesn't waste his time or money getting stuff awarded by people who have poorer eyes for paphs and have seen far less than he has. He keeps very up to date though by walking though own greenhouses, talking and looking at paphs from all over especially Japan. Also he is a hybridizer so he is not interested in the decent flower with no faults, he is looking for the spectacular ones.

This is not to say that all judges are poor or corrupt. I am sure there are many good ones out there. One of the main problem as Paphlady pointed out it that they can't possibly be knowledgable about all orchids. That is an absurd demand. I work really hard at learning about paphs/phrags and it is overwhelming by itself. Ask me about catts I have no idea what is good and what is not.


----------



## paphlady (Apr 9, 2008)

Sanderianum said:


> Some people do not bother anymore to get their plants judged, just take very goo pictures and that's all. I think on my side that it is better. For the micranthum KwangSee, I showed one at the RHS, and 3 at the DOG. One at the DOG got an SM, fine... but the 2 other ones and the RHS ones were rejected, and I learned after that the judges found they had huge flowers and perfect shape, BUT the pouch was not dark enough ( of course !). One famous professionnal grower from the USA submitted plants to an European judging team ( I would not say which one, only that they speak english...). None of them were awarded, though they were gorgeous. After the show, I was taking breakfast, where 1, then 2, then 3 judges asked for divisons. He sent them to hell oke: telling them that if they were not award quality, he would not bother them with divisions. Another time, pollen from an entire inflorescence disappeared ( a rothschildianum as I remember), only judges had access to the plants. There are plenty of stories like that that eventually made people disappointed with the judging systems anywhere in the world.


I believe you. I've heard many similar stories (and then some). Sadly, I personally experienced some of them as well. As a result, I have no interest in AOS whatsoever. I was being polite with my previous post.



Sanderianum said:


> If one thinks very carefully, Terry Root got very, very few awards, for sure less than 30/year over the last 10 years, if not even less. He did not dare to bring the plants to be awarded, that's it. He knows their quality, he has pictures ( sometimes good, sometimes... :drool: but still know what it is), trusting customers and that's it. Of course, many of his plants are awarded, but not by him. The rothschildianum AQ/AOS was a big joke as well. Some FCC roths were awarded low award, and some "lower quality" ones were awarded FCC in his batch ( though all of them were gorgeous, no doubt !).


Terry Root not dare to bring his plants to be awarded? That doesn't sound like what I've heard about him. I think it's more of a waste of his time than anything else. I know it is a waste of my time.


----------



## paphlady (Apr 9, 2008)

paphioland said:


> You are also right the roth awarding of the rex x mm clones from the OZ was a joke. There was no reason as to why some got awards and others didn't. Even the level of the award showed no correlation. I personally like 'wide horizon' the best but I think it got an hcc. lol. Some really great ones weren't even awarded.


From what I've heard and pics I've seen (and if I remember correctly), up to the point where OZ took the plants in for judging, each one of the roths in that group surpassed all the FCC roth awarded until then. If they had judged those plants correctly, each of those roths should have received an award (if not all FCC's).


----------

