# Clowesia dodsoniana, Clowesia russelliana & Clowesia thylaciochila (Question!)



## Kavanaru (Jul 28, 2010)

I know, not slippers but probably some of you has teh information at hand...

Does anyone here has information regarding the differences between these 3 related species: Clowesia dodsoniana, Clowesia russelliana & Clowesia thylaciochila? I mean differences that would help to identify them correctly, if you have the plant on your hand..

I have no experience with the 3 species, and in pictures they look very similar to each other, sometimes looking like being the same (or the photos being mislabelled)...

Thanks in advance!!


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## Shiva (Jul 28, 2010)

Ramón

The AOS put out a series of articles some years back on catasetums, clowesias and cycnoches. You should be able to find and download them on the AOS site, if you haven't done so already.


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## Kavanaru (Jul 28, 2010)

Hi shiva, I have all the AOS articles (they are kind of a classic for Catasetiane fans  however, they do not answer my question on how to separate these species (nor how to separate some of the common other Catasetum or Cycnoches)...


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## SlipperFan (Jul 28, 2010)

They are similar! Have you checked the internet encyclopedia? Looks like the lip holds the differences:
http://orchidspecies.com/clowdodsoni.htm
http://orchidspecies.com/clowesiarussellianum.htm
http://orchidspecies.com/clowthylaciochila.htm


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## Kavanaru (Jul 29, 2010)

SlipperFan said:


> They are similar! Have you checked the internet encyclopedia? Looks like the lip holds the differences:
> http://orchidspecies.com/clowdodsoni.htm
> http://orchidspecies.com/clowesiarussellianum.htm
> http://orchidspecies.com/clowthylaciochila.htm



Hi Dot, 

Thanks for the links!

I had seen all three link already but except for dodsoni, where the lip is (at least in the pictures shown there) obviously different, the pictures could be exchanged without noting much difference... the lip differences I see in these pictures of russelliana and thylaciochila, are not big enough to not being explained by just species variability.. I know that in theory the differences between the 3 species is mainly the lip, however it is not 100% clear to be which are the diagnostic differences... flower size and flower color (as sometimes propossed) are not valid in this case as both are quite variable and overlapping....


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## Kavanaru (Jul 29, 2010)

in the meantime I have retrieved the following information in a Latin-American forum:

dodsoniana: lip very open and wide (in comparison to the othe species), and longer than in the two other species
russelliana and thylaciochila: Lip pretty closed, almost like a bag, however the tip of the lip in russelliana is reflexed like the lip of Clowesia warscewiczii.
There is a lot of variation in color, fragrance, distribution and blooming season in all species, so that these characters are not good for identification.


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## SlipperFan (Jul 29, 2010)

So, you have to know where a plant came from before you can ID it? That's crazy!


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## Kavanaru (Jul 30, 2010)

SlipperFan said:


> So, you have to know where a plant came from before you can ID it? That's crazy!



no, the opposite of that. There is too much variation in the distribution of these species to use this as a diagnostic. They key is on the lips, as mentionned before...

However, using distribution to separate species is used in some cases... and I agree with you, it is a crazy and IMO very weak way to separate species...


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