# Is this jenmanii alba?



## monocotman (Mar 30, 2021)

This is a seedling flowering for the first time and bought from Germany about two years ago, probably from Elsner. The label says jenmanii alba x self.
It would have been a South American import.
The flower started to open yesterday and seems to be a bit too ‘full’ in its shape to be typical for the species. It is 16cm wide and tall.
it’s a bit too early for the characteristic fragrance to kick in but I will keep watch for it.
whatever it is, I love it.



David


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## monocotman (Mar 30, 2021)

I wonder whether it is a selfing or a mericlone of jenmanii ‘fuch’s snow‘ FCC/AOS? It very similar. This is another disputed plant that may not a true jenmanii. It can join my other disputed plants!


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## DrLeslieEe (Mar 30, 2021)

A nice flower but until proven with other characteristics it is unlikely a jenmanii. The flower confirmation and size are wrong. Like Fuchs Snow, it might have other species in it.


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## abax (Mar 30, 2021)

White Catts. are always special and lovely. I hope it is fragrant.


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## geoffsharris (Mar 31, 2021)

Often just looking at the flowers of the unifoliates is really difficult to tell the different species apart or a primary hybrid. Typical for jenmanii would be blooming Oct-Dec after a short to several month rest from growth and from a single fairly narrow, tall upright sheath. The do not have particularly wide leaves compared to warneri or gaskelliana and are fairly small in stature compared to other species. While probably the most variable trait, I find jenmanii tends to have the greatest angle of leaf with relationship to the pseudobulb. Labiata generally has pretty upright growths for example vs. jenmanii has a fairly big angle between leaf and pseudobulb.
If there is evidence of a double sheath this would probably indicate a hybrid with some amount of warneri based on the bloom season you are seeing today. This would be further reinforced if this grew a new growth over the winter and is blooming right after the new growth matured and/or has a double sheath and/or wide leaves. This time of year jenmanii should be initiating new growth and after the growths get a bit of size, it will initiate root growth. They tend to be a little behind initiating growth compared to other very similar species like gaskelliana and labiata in my experience. Warneri on the other hand grows new growths staring in the fall, grows over the winter and blooms from a newly completed growth starting about now through June. It will then root after flowering, over the later spring and summer. Jenmanii also has pretty much the nicest smell of the nice smelling unifoliates (at least to my nose). What ever it "is", it is lovely and very well grown. Nice. Enjoy it.


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## terryros (Mar 31, 2021)

Building my Cattleya species collection it became obvious early on that it can be difficult to know the provenance of a plant that is supposedly a species. I would like to have Geoff’s, Leslie’s, and David’s knowledge and experience with the species to be able to evaluate fragrance, growth habit, etc beyond just what a flower looks like.


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## cnycharles (Mar 31, 2021)

Very nice


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## monocotman (Mar 31, 2021)

Just a few more facts about the plant.
Facebook posts of this plant reveal that Palmer orchids bought some jenmanii seedlings from H&R nurseries which bloomed out with 25% alba and most of these looked like this one. So maybe there are some ‘commercial’ jenmanii plants around that look like this.
The plant has some jenmanii characters. It has the big angle between the leaf and stem. See photo.
The leaves are quite narrow and the bulb is not big by unifoliate standards, at about 15cm tall. The leaf is 20cm long and a maximum of 5.5cm wide.
This bloom is from a growth that has just matured and a single, not double, very narrow green sheath. The plant is also just starting to root.
I wouldn’t worry about the blooming date, the plant is not yet settled. It’s come from South America to Europe and then the UK in the past three years.
The only thing I have yet to test is the fragrance. It is just day three at present and I cannot yet smell anything. Hopefully tomorrow the scent will kick in.
I usually find that it takes that long for cattleyas to start smelling good.
There is another plant in low bud at present which was actually bought from eBay as jenmanii ‘Fuchs snow‘.It will be good to compare them together in a couple of weeks.
I am surprised by the size of the flower. Today its 17cm across.
My feeling is the same as Leslie, that it is not pure jenmanii. Someone has ‘improved’ the species and is now selling it as the real thing.
Terry, you are right about provenance. There is a real commercial incentive to improve species, sometimes illicitly, maybe get an award for one of the plants and then reap the financial rewards.


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## Ozpaph (Mar 31, 2021)

17cm!


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## geoffsharris (Mar 31, 2021)

I've often wondered as an orchid aficionado that grows only species if I am aiding in the making of metaphorical golden retrievers over time or preserving wolves. In my collection, I have good representation of various Cattleya species from line bred coerulea tetraploids to tipos that are pretty representative of a very nice wild plant - the wolf with a very smooth and pretty coat in the analogy. I sometimes wonder in the quest for bigger, rounder, heavier substance flowers we loose a little bit of what makes the species unique and interesting in the first place. Then I think of a recently bloomed massive coerulea lueddemanniana with almost steel colored veins that is a stunningly beautiful and unique plant and I just enjoy it for what it is. No need to get too caught up in what it "is" unless you start thinking about making the next generation. Perhaps then you may want to ask yourself if you are aiming to make more wolves or golden retrievers and then figure out what your plant "is" or may be.


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## DrLeslieEe (Apr 1, 2021)

I'm curious when you perform the fragrance test.

Did H&R indicate parentage? I assume the other 75% were typo? That means both parents were half alba lineage.


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## monocotman (Apr 1, 2021)

Geoff,I have to agree. At the end of the day, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Plants that are distinctly non average but desirable from a collectors perspective are more likely to contain genes from outside that particular species. 
Quite how they got there is anyone’s guess. Some of it maybe deliberate outcrossing but some may not. Introgressions via natural hybrids and then subsequent back crossing happens in quite a few species, especially in cattleyas where pollination barriers seem to be almost non existent.
Leslie, it is late morning on day four of this flower opening and the scent is there but definitely not pronounced. You have to stick your nose close to it to smell anything.
I have no more information than that from Palmers orchids. You’re right, both parents must have been carrying the alba gene but were both probably tipo’s.
Looking at more photos on line and how this flower has matured, it is a dead ringer for fuch’s snow. The plant that was awarded by the AOS had an NS of 17.5cm and this one is 17cm. Whether this is a mericlone or a selfing of Fuchs snow, I cannot tell and Regina Elsner who I bought it from has since retired.
I am surprised that it was awarded as a jenmanii by the AOS. It is so different to all the other albas on the internet. It has none of the grace that others have, it’s a big chunky bloom.
David


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## terryros (Apr 1, 2021)

If I am growing Cattleyas just to have pretty flowers, none of this matters. I just look at it and decide if I like it or not. Maybe my standards change over time. However, if I am a collector trying to have specific species and primary hybrids, then the accuracy of plant identification matters. Like any collectable, rare and well known cultivars are more valuable and authentication is critical. That makes this discussion important for some, but not all.


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## geoffsharris (Apr 1, 2021)

Thanks Terry. I've been wrestling with this myself as I do some amount of hobby breeding. Perhaps better as its own thread at some point.

Would be great to hear more from others experience both from a collecting standpoint and a breeding standpoint. There are numerous examples of "fishy" species plants that are standouts possibly because they have an indiscretion in their genetic background. Lueddemaniana 'Cero Verde', trianae 'Mooreana', mossiae 'Willowbrook', eldorado 'Mt. Ito', there are many others. These are all fabulous plants that are special compared to the rest of their brethren, some from the wild and others probably not.

Trianae is a great example. A number of the nicest old wild collected clones from the southern part of the distribution would appear to have a chromosome count of 60 vs. the normal 40 for the vast majority of Cattleyas. (Per Cassio de Berg thesis project). http://cassiovandenberg.yolasite.com/resources/thesis.pdf
I know plants don't read taxonomy journals and while we humans like things neat and tidy the plants are just doing their thing, at least in the wild. While selfing/mericloning or dividing these seems quite reasonable, I sometimes wonder the wisdom of using them in outcrosses as this starts to get a bit murkier if we want to try and keep species somewhat true to their origins. I have AC Burrage x Rolf Altenberg and AC Burrage x Cashens. Both are crazy, huge beautiful flowers. Have been debating the use of these as parents.

Would welcome others thoughts on this. Pretty esoteric I know.


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## terryros (Apr 1, 2021)

Whether hybrids or species, comparing a diploid plant to a polyploid one is not fair, and yet it occurs frequently for awards and was probably with us from the very beginning with natural tetraploid/mixaploids. With space, time, and money, I would like to be able to have excellent diploid and tetraploid examples of the species! I would like to avoid having a hybrid of two species called a species of one. Without sophisticated genetic analysis it is hard to avoid this confusion.


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## monocotman (Apr 1, 2021)

Maybe in the next ten years the cost of genotyping individual orchids will become feasible. Until then, everything is guesswork.
I work as a professional plant breeder in agriculture and here we use these procedures routinely every day. We genotype an individual plants for about £30 with about 2000 genetic markers. The individual marker calls don’t mean much but when you compare them to many others, patterns emerge and you can start to make deductions.
It would help to decide if individual plants were hybrids or pure species.


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## terryros (Apr 1, 2021)

I hope to be alive for that genetic sophistication but think of the distress that may be caused as important plants are determined to be something different than they are labeled. It probably won’t matter for complex hybrids, but there could be many surprises with species and primary hybrids.

In the back of my mind, I think my attempt to build a good collection of species and primary hybrids might be pointless if many of these plants aren’t really species or primaries any way. Maybe I should just be going for the prettiest flowers and most robust growing plants! Who cares about the breeding if it is frequently inaccurate anyway.


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## Ozpaph (Apr 1, 2021)

much cheaper than i thought. What type of plants are you genotyping?


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## monocotman (Apr 2, 2021)

Ozpaph, I am breeding barley. Genetic markers for each species have to be developed independently. They do not work very well across species, so it maybe some time before the technology is available for cattleyas. 
At the end of the day, I would follow the old breeders maxim of ‘cross the best with the best and hope for the best’.
It should be possible to work out some of the genetics of the parents based on the resulting progeny but beyond that, at present, all is guesswork.


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## geoffsharris (Apr 2, 2021)

This is something that I am super curious about. There are actually some good papers on molecular barcoding markers, for example walkeriana compared to loddigesii that have shown 'kenny' and 'pendentive' are of hybrid origin. Telling apart individual plants of a single species requires more info, but telling most of the populations of Cattleyas apart at the species level is actually pretty easy for the vast majority with just ITS and and a single plastid gene. Throw in a few more markers and there is pretty clear resolution amongst all of the species. I've actually played around with the data generated by Casio van de Berg in Genebank that was used to make phylogenic trees for Cattleya and it is certainly robust enough to be used to tell apart primary hybrids of look alike species like labiata and warneri or identify 'pendentive' and 'kenny' as likely hybrids or of hybrid origin. I'd be supper curious if I could get the cost and time structure down low enough to get the data to do some testing on my plants and others that were intersted. Would appreciate your thoughts of what this would practically take to make happen.


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## terryros (Apr 2, 2021)

Your idea of a consortium of growers to pool together to plan and contribute specific plants (and help fund) to test the feasibility of species identification is a good one, but I suspect we are still a few years away from easy enough access to the technology.


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## geoffsharris (Apr 2, 2021)

I have a very good friend at Illumina and we have discussed this a bit. The key is finding a lab that does this all the time for other plants already and has brought the cost structure down and simplified the logistics of sample processing and data generation. If I could send a leaf or root + $50 and get back data on 7 genes that are already identified as having the necessary resolving power, the rest is pretty easy. The necessary primer sequences for those genes are already out there and I've spoken a little with Cassio van de Berg via email about this. He is certainly aware of and working on other genes and necessary primers to evaluate an even larger array of markers. Once a motivated person has the data for a bunch of plants, building a model is actually not that bad. Turning that into a service in itself is probably a long way off as there just aren't enough orchid breeders to make it financially viable, but being able to do this once there is a published baseline for the species and comparing individual plant data against it is again pretty easy even for a motivated hobbyist. This is why I would love to talk with Monocotman further. It hadn't really occurred to me that other plant breeders are already doing this for other more commercially important plants.


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## monocotman (Apr 2, 2021)

Geoff
it sounds like you are already half way there!
Certainly you know more about the mechanics of the procedure than I do. 
I just send off leaf or grain samples to the lab and receive marker data back already analysed.
Most plant breeders approach the marker issue from a different angle to Cassio. 
We use a set of markers than takes a snapshot of the entire genome, not just a few genes. The markers are called SNP (single nucleotide polymorphisms) or snips for short. These are individual base pairs in functional genes only where the A,T,C or G base pair can vary at specific sites for different breeding lines. 
As you must know, functional genes are highly conserved and these SNP’s are few and far between.
It has taken much effort to find these sites.
An individual call means little but when you have 2000 of them for each line, you can use it to characterise the variety and compare it to others. Parentages can be calculated and lots of further analysis performed, most of which is commercially sensitive.
I work for a large multinational plant breeder and we just have a single lab doing the analysis of all the crops for the whole of the company across the world. The lab is state of the art and fully automated.
regards
David


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## DrLeslieEe (Apr 3, 2021)

Part of my prep in doing research for my orchid presentations have come across this conundrum of genetic analysis for species identification and familial relationships. The need for the identification of true species is important to maintain the genetic stability of the wild population for the future and to determine taxonomic associations.

The problem we face is that the newer and bigger 'species' from line breeding and selection may be contaminated unknowingly or deliberately through the use of dubious parent species (like walkeriana 'Kenny' etc) and continued for generations, until one day it appears on the judging table as a superior species that has 0.5% hybrid genes. Through the use of genetic testing of certain SNPs, it may not be detected. So these can masquerade into the breeding population as pure. As David says, the entire genome may need to be analyzed through a comparison with a baseline of that species (extract from a confirmed jungle plant). It must take into account of the ploidy variability.

In the old days, certain species were thought to be one and the same and so were crossed with each other (such as violacea and bellinas, loddigesii and harrisonniana, etc). There are also different forms of the same species that may have been better off to separate like the different populations of trianae (typo vs sangretoro types), and were cross bred. Some were sold mistakenly as one species (eg guttata sold as tigrina) and bred onto a true tigrina, and perpetuated by breeders unbeknownst. These are the true infiltrators that can confuse the entire picture. I have seen plants of these in South America, posing as a species and being defended to the death of its authenticity by the owners.

As Geoff proposed, a systematic protocol of genotyping based on David's methods of full genome and SNPs analysis is the ideal way to truly identify a pure species from a mole. It is a costly endeavor but it is the only way. Cassio and Chase have led the initial stages to show the science has practical applications. It is now up to the universe pull this together as it did for barley lol.

I, for one, am ready to support this! Maybe we should start a crowdfund for this project.


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## PeteM (Apr 3, 2021)

DrLeslieEe said:


> Part of my prep in doing research for my orchid presentations have come across this conundrum of genetic analysis for species identification and familial relationships. The need for the identification of true species is important to maintain the genetic stability of the wild population for the future and to determine taxonomic associations.
> 
> The problem we face is that the newer and bigger 'species' from line breeding and selection may be contaminated unknowingly or deliberately through the use of dubious parent species (like walkeriana 'Kenny' etc) and continued for generations, until one day it appears on the judging table as a superior species that has 0.5% hybrid genes. Through the use of genetic testing of certain SNPs, it may not be detected. So these can masquerade into the breeding population as pure. As David says, the entire genome may need to be analyzed through a comparison with a baseline of that species (extract from a confirmed jungle plant). It must take into account of the ploidy variability.
> 
> ...


Genetic stability of wild populations.. Sounds like a project an organization like the AOS could help seed a small amount of money to fund a grad student at a land grant institution tied to one of the national labs like USDA ARS. Or an orchid conservation effort through the Smithsonian? Where is Tom Merinda when you need him. Maybe someone here could write an article for the AOS bulletin.. start the ball.


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## geoffsharris (Apr 3, 2021)

Besides traditional farmers that are doing this for cash crops, the biggest driver appears to be marijuana growers. I think this might be the key as there are a number of testing services that are starting to combine genotypic and phenotypic screening for a price sensitive group that isn't planting millions of acres of a crop but something more similar to orchid breeding where one is trying to tweak strains. 


DrLeslieEe said:


> The problem we face is that the newer and bigger 'species' from line breeding and selection may be contaminated unknowingly or deliberately through the use of dubious parent species (like walkeriana 'Kenny' etc) and continued for generations, until one day it appears on the judging table as a superior species that has 0.5% hybrid genes. Through the use of genetic testing of certain SNPs, it may not be detected. So these can masquerade into the breeding population as pure. As David says, the entire genome may need to be analyzed through a comparison with a baseline of that species (extract from a confirmed jungle plant). It must take into account of the ploidy variability.



I agree that if one wants to set an individual plant as the taxon genetic reference similar to the type species and compare against that, it requires a larger set of SNPs and the data set necessary to get to reasonable resolving power is pretty big. One needs to know the inter and intra species variability in order to resolve. I think this is where Cassio is headed at the moment to try and look at a lot more genes so one can characterize the intra species variability to refine specific taxa concepts and for in situ preservation and/or repopulation purposes.
If we want to do things like show 'kenny' is a hybrid today, that requires very little data. The one can of worms that this will assuredly open is that our definitions of individual species are often a lot more rigid than reality. Walkeriana and nobilior have gene flow and while separated as taxa, there are plenty of plants in the wild that aren't quite so black and white. Assuredly there have been thousands of wild versions of 'Kenny' (perhaps not semi albas) that have existed and introgressed back into loddigesii or walkeriana. Tirgnia and guttata are more of a man made problem, but wild plants from over the entirety of the distribution range are not quite as clear either and likely several of the separated distributions of each species are somewhat distinct from one another. Bicolor for example is assuredly a complex and depending upon its specific habitat, has gene flow from several unrelated species. 

Perhaps this is something we could look at as three different problems. One is the evaluating the purity of a plant with regard to a specific reference standard, the second is what is the variability in the wild of a specific taxa and how to understand that with regard to biogeography and the third is what the heck are actually in our collections and how well does that map to what is in the wild with regard to specific taxa concepts. 

I really like the idea of trying to evaluate what we have in our collections and either crowdsourcing the funding and/or getting the AOS to help with finding someone that is intersted in doing the work. The key difficulty is in getting the plant source material from our collections and from people like Jerry Fischer, Fred Clarke, Ben Oliveros, and many others that are doing the majority of cattleya breeding and own many of the famous clones that have been used to make current generations of plants. That can be solved by motivated individuals contributing source material. The reality is that the number of plants that have been used to breed pretty much all of the plants we are growing as Cattleya species are derived from perhaps a few thousand clones. This is a product of a few imported plants that win awards and then become the founders of the next generation. Because generation times are long, we have perhaps a handful of generations at most from a wild ancestor in all but the most aggressively line bred plants. The same can be said for the slipper orchids. 

DrLeslieEe and anyone else interested, I'd be happy to speak further about how to scope out a project proposal and then approach the AOS or others to see what could be done to make this actually happen.


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## DrLeslieEe (Apr 3, 2021)

Im definitely into this endeavour. I’m sure we can corral some interested individuals into this topics including David and Terry.

I can also ask Tom Miranda and possibly Drs Griesbach, Pradhan, Stig Daelstrom and Wesley Higgins to add their experiences into this effort.

And of course, your contact Cassio would be a prime source of info and help too.

If our proposal is doable, I can approach Rob Fuch, president of AOS to see if they are amendable to support this kind of project. Rob has been very supportive of my judging apprenticeship through many shows and guided me kindly.


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## PeteM (Apr 3, 2021)

DrLeslieEe said:


> Im definitely into this endeavour. I’m sure we can corral some interested individuals into this topics including David and Terry.
> 
> I can also ask Tom Miranda and possibly Drs Griesbach, Pradhan, Stig Daelstrom and Wesley Higgins to add their experiences into this effort.
> 
> ...


wanted to add the cattleya symposium might be a good group to drum up support and having the perspective of a taxonomists like Francisco Miranda who might be able to help procures samples from existing plants in the dwindling jungle habitats or existing overseas collections.


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## DrLeslieEe (Apr 3, 2021)

PeteM said:


> wanted to add the cattleya symposium might be a good group to drum up support and having the perspective of a taxonomists like Francisco Miranda who might be able to help procures samples from existing plants in the dwindling jungle habitats or existing overseas collections.


Yes let’s add you Pete and Francisco.

I do have contacts in South America who can help sourced the jungle plants as well.


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## terryros (Apr 3, 2021)

I would contribute some money to such an adventure. I would think we would pick a demonstration specie to work on and make mistakes - what would you pick?


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## geoffsharris (Apr 3, 2021)

This is very cool how intersted people are. I will set up another thread shortly. I second Terry's idea of picking one or a couple of species to think through how to do something like this on a small scale and show it can be done and then how it could be expanded.


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## Ozpaph (Apr 4, 2021)

pick the controversial - walkeriana. Just need material from the 'jungle', not in nursery plants to start with.


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## DrLeslieEe (Apr 4, 2021)

terryros said:


> I would contribute some money to such an adventure. I would think we would pick a demonstration specie to work on and make mistakes - what would you pick?


As in any science experiment, the most logical is to test the hypothesis in question. With that I agree with Terry (and Geoff).

I also concur with OzPaph to start with the controversial species that we know has interlopers within its ranks. Walkerianas and mossiaes are the most easily available test subjects, since jungle plants are easy to sourced from reputable growers. 

And Pete, great idea to approach filed guides like Francisco Miranda and conservation committees to help with the project.


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## terryros (Apr 4, 2021)

Could it be funded through AOS, to which we could contribute funds? I agree we need verified native plants to be a bench mark. We also need to identify a lab and at least plant (if not orchid) genetics experts to analyze data. Maybe a simple demonstration project would take one native plant and figure out what could be sequenced with existing technology. If this is too difficult or too expensive, then this isn't the time to move forward.


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## Phred (Apr 4, 2021)

So here’s some food for thought:
1) There are, from what I find, 49 accepted species of Cattleya 
2) There are, from what I find, 2,821 known primary hybrids.
Questions:
1) It seems obvious that nature is probably as good at this as we are... as long as the two species are in proximity to each other.
2) It seems obvious that wild crosses could have happened, even if rarely, way back in time. The resulting offspring from (species A x species B = hybrid C) could be crossed back to one of the parent species (C x a plant from species A). This could happen for several generations and with each generation of offspring. Since the “hybrid” plant in each generation can only contribute 50% of its genetics to its offspring then each consecutive generation species A is crossed back in, the genetics from the original species B parent is reduced. At what point would an offspring be considered a species?
3) What determines... or should determine what places a plant into a particular species? Should it be numerous genes that are the same or should one gene put it out?
4) What happens when the wild plants you test show an odd gene or two for the species but everything else looks the same as the group? 
Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m guessing that all Cattleya have at least some genes that are the same. What we need to look at are the ones that are different and decide if those genes actually separate them.


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## geoffsharris (Apr 4, 2021)

Proposal to evaluate genetic tools to evaluate Cattleya species


New thread based on Is this jenmanii alba? discussion that developed out of is this plant Cattleya jenmanii or not? The idea behind this thread is to think about how to use our collections to crowdsource plant material and financial support to pilot an evaluation of using modern genetic...




www.slippertalk.com


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## h_mossy (Apr 6, 2021)

Looks like a C. gaskelliana var alba. Nice whatever it is.


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## NYEric (Apr 9, 2021)

WOW, lots of historic names here. All I can say is Weird looking Paphs!


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