# Fox Valley Fireball, Sherman's March, and Tracy Nelson



## terryros (May 14, 2015)

If you are not interested in the history of breeding with Phrags, don’t read any further!

Most of what I know about Phrags comes from living 20 minutes away from Orchids Limited in Minnesota where Jerry Fischer, Jason Fischer, and Robert Quene do outstanding work and are wonderful people. I also made sure I had a Fox Valley Fireball from Tom Kalina (Fox Valley orchids in our neighboring state Wisconsin). 

I have been interested in the periodic posts from some people about their nice red Fireballs. My Fireball is a large, round, but more violaceous flower, much closer in color to a kovachii than it is to a red Phrag Jason Fischer. I wondered why.

In the early 1990s Phrag lindleyanum, sargentianum, and kaieteurum were considered separate species. More recently, and I am sure controversially, sargentianum and kaieteurum were considered varieties of lindleyanum (some sources even saying kaieteurum is just a synonym for lindleyanum).

I thought it was interesting to see some parallel breeding history with these three species/varieties.

1992: *Memoria Dick Clements* (sargentianum x besseae, initiated by Clements, registered by Edwards)

1992: *Andean Fire* (lindleyanum x besseae, initiated by Clements, registered by Schorde)

1993: *Rosalie Dixler* (kaieteurum x besseae, initiated by Hegedus, registered by Dixler)

If you search for pictures of each of these three you will the strong similarities of the flowers.

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1998: *Barbara LeAnn* (besseae x fischeri, initiated and registered by Fischer).

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2002: *Sherman’s March* (Memoria Dick Clements x Barbara LeAnn, initiated by Goldner, registered by Woodstream) - the only picture that I found was from Ray Barkalow of First Ray’s.

2004: *Fox Valley Fireball* (Barbara LeAnn x Rosalie Dixler, initiated and registered by Kalina at Fox Valley)

2010: *Tracy Nelson* (Andean Fire x Barbara LeAnn, initiated and registered by Stoddart).

If you look at pictures of these three, you will see strong similarities.
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It seems likely that the modest color differences between lindleyanum, sargentianum, and kaieteurum as well as the variations in different besseae and fischeri clones explains a range of colors from pretty red to the pretty violaceous color in all three of these last crosses.

If it is accepted that kaieteurum is a synonym or only a variety of lindleyanum, if breeding were done today there couldn’t be a Rosalie Dixler (Andean Fire got there first). Tom Kalina could still have made Fox Valley Fireball, but it would have been (Barbara LeAnn x Andean Fire) and thus there would not have been a Tracy Nelson.

One of the rules of thumb must be that you should breed quickly with species and varieties so you can register and name things before the species and varieties get reclassified! There are many other examples of this situation with orchids.


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## SlipperKing (May 14, 2015)

Nice research. Thanks for the in sight


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## NYEric (May 14, 2015)

terryros said:


> If it is accepted that kaieteurum is a synonym or only a variety of lindleyanum..,



Has this been accepted?


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## Heather (May 14, 2015)

Interesting. I love this stuff. Thank you for posting it!


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## terryros (May 14, 2015)

Eric - I can't tell. Dr. Braeme in a 2011 paper has lindleyanum, sargentianum, and kaieteurum as three separate species in the subgenus Platypetalum. However, we know the strong debate that was stoked over popowii/humboldtii/etc naming and this may not be settled either.

In several other sites authors hedge more. This is a typical quote about kaieteurum:

"Often cited as a synonym of P lindleyanum but differs in the short status, shorter, non-branching inflorescence and certain floral characteristics, so I have included it as a separate species."

Since there is no Supreme Court for our delineation of orchid species, it seems that it takes time and a critical mass of scientific evidence for this to settle out. It would certainly be easiest for all of our named hybrids if lindleyanum, sargentianum, and kaieteurum would stay as distinct species, even if they are all very similar. I thought the great similarity of all of the similar hybrids with these three "species" pointed out their similarity.


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## li'l frog (May 14, 2015)

Phrags get more complicated, or interesting with Phrag besseae. Early on, what is now considered dalesandroii was just another besseae. So there are hybrids with besseae listed as a parent that may actually be the progeny of dalesandroii.


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## Linus_Cello (May 14, 2015)

terryros said:


> Since there is no Supreme Court for our delineation of orchid species, it seems that it takes time and a critical mass of scientific evidence for this to settle out.



Don't get SCOTUS involved. They ruled that tomato is a vegetable; hate to see how they rule on taxonomic orchid names (Scalia: it's based on the original identification name; Breyer: we should defer to the expert nomenclature group).


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## bullsie (May 15, 2015)

Wonderful post! Till the 'dust clears', I'd much prefer they stick with what has been registered. Too much clumping and dividing too early in the researching makes for lots of problems.

No wonder I have difficulty finding my Rosalie Dixler. I look for someone else now! (But thanks to EH, I get close!!! - thanks ed!)


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## Linus_Cello (May 15, 2015)

Will this info be eventually presented to AOS judges?


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## Heather (May 15, 2015)

bullsie said:


> No wonder I have difficulty finding my Rosalie Dixler.



Haha, that was my first thought when I read this!


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## NYEric (May 15, 2015)

They are similar but you can see the differences. Mem. Dick Clements has petals that are more horizontal and pubescent, etc.


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