# Paphiopedilum gratixianum



## Brabantia (Oct 29, 2012)

Purchased in Germany (O&M) as Paphiopedilum villosum boxalii but this is not it. An advice?


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## JeanLux (Oct 29, 2012)

Not sure for gratrix.; mine has much more greenish coloration on the dorsal, and the petals are clearly divided conc. color: the upper half more brownish, the lower more greenish!? Jean


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## GuRu (Oct 29, 2012)

JeanLux said:


> Not sure for gratrix.; mine has much more greenish coloration on the dorsal, and the petals are clearly divided conc. color: the upper half more brownish, the lower more greenish!? Jean


Jean, I understand your doubts...but I compared this photo with others in the net and eventually I think this flower is within the variation of the species. Even the staminode looks gratrix like...but to say it frankly - I'm no taxonomist. 
At least a lovely flower.


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## SlipperKing (Oct 29, 2012)

Mutant posted one back in Aug that looks very similar
http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26685

Carsten said *"Looks like var. daoense to me. Very nice, indeed."*
So what does a daoense variety look like?


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## SlipperFan (Oct 29, 2012)

Lovely dorsal spotting.


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## Eric Muehlbauer (Oct 29, 2012)

Can you show us the whole plant? If the leaves are wide, it could be the true gratrixianum. Most plants with that name are now considered to be affine.


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## abax (Oct 30, 2012)

I have a 'Wedgewood' x 'Lula Girl' just about to open and the bud looks much, much darker than this bloom would have been in bud. Perhaps mine plant isn't a gratrix?


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## Ozpaph (Oct 30, 2012)

It has a villosum 'stance' to it, I think.


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## labskaus (Oct 30, 2012)

I got one with a similar flower from O&M, as villosum var. Na Thrang.

Check this old thread:

http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6516

Brabantia, what are the leaves of yours looking like?


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## biothanasis (Oct 30, 2012)

Lovely flower whatever it is! 

It looks gratrixianum-ish..!


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## dodidoki (Oct 30, 2012)

I think its a hybrid. I have similar to this one but I bougth as a cultivated hybrid (no name)


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## Rick (Oct 30, 2012)

Eric Muehlbauer said:


> Can you show us the whole plant? If the leaves are wide, it could be the true gratrixianum. Most plants with that name are now considered to be affine.



Correct. This classification was recently reinforced (again) with Koopowitz's new checklist in OD.

I don't think this is totally out of range for flowers labeled as gratrixianum that should be the Vietnamese affine.

But typically there is a pretty distinct stripe through the middle of the petals, and the upper half of the petals are darker than the lower half.

Maybe the Laotian "true" gratrixianum lack that striping (as well as having bigger/wider leaves).

The dorsal doesn't look like the bulk of boxalli that have been floating around.

As more of SE Asia gets explored/exploited we tend to see that every new valley and ridge has its own subtle variety of villosum/gratrixianum/insigne/affine. I have a power point presentation by Averyanov that would put all these concepts into a single huge very smeary species concept.


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## The Mutant (Nov 6, 2012)

SlipperKing said:


> Mutant posted one back in Aug that looks very similar
> http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26685
> 
> Carsten said *"Looks like var. daoense to me. Very nice, indeed."*
> So what does a daoense variety look like?


Yup, it looks very similar indeed and mine also came from O&M, but mine was labeled as "villsoum var. gratrixianum", which, as far as I've understood it, was the old name for gratrixianum. 

The leaves on my gratrixinaum are 4 cm wide and have purple spotting on their bases. I don't know if mine is a "true" gratrixianum or "just" one of the variants of this rather murky bunch of Paphs (villosum, insigne, affine etc.), but I really like mine and it seems to be a vigorous grower as well so it's a keeper.


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## Martin (Nov 6, 2012)

Some time ago O&M got some plants from this species group like gratrixianum, villosum... Sometimes after repotting, tags were changed unwittingly are customers change plants during saerching the batches. I also bought some plants labeled as gratrixianum daoense. They turned out to be gratrixianum i think:




Paphiopedilum gratrixianum 'daoense' von epicphals auf Flickr




Paphiopedilum gratrixianum 'daoense' von epicphals auf Flickr




Paphiopedilum gratrixianum var. daoense von epicphals auf Flickr

here is another old photo of a plant which was in bloom within thius batch:




O&amp;M 0810 Paphiopedilum species von epicphals auf Flickr

and the flowering batch together with P. coccineum in 2009:




O&amp;M 1009 Paphiopedilum barbigerum var lockianum &amp; gratrixianum von epicphals auf Flickr


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## SlipperFan (Nov 6, 2012)

I'd pick the second one up in a heartbeat!


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## Brabantia (Nov 7, 2012)

Here are two photos showing the plant in question.(with the erroneous identifcation)
The longest leaf measures 220 mm and 28 mm width.
And I must add: thank you very much for your comments.


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## The Mutant (Nov 7, 2012)

It looks a lot like my gratrixianum except that the leaves are a bit shorter on mine (longest is 20 cm) and wider (3.8 cm, I got a bit carried away when I wrote 4 cm).


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## quietaustralian (Feb 4, 2013)

Rick said:


> Correct. This classification was recently reinforced (again) with Koopowitz's new checklist in OD.
> 
> I don't think this is totally out of range for flowers labeled as gratrixianum that should be the Vietnamese affine.
> 
> ...



I thought the P affine debate was over? 

Xavier translated the original description of P affine and I asked Dr Braem to confirm a few weeks ago. The translation I received via Dr Braem relating to leaves is.

"Leaves 4 to 5, more or less lobed, up to 15 cm long and up to 3 cm wide, more or less dark green with white margins, *striped and spotted with darker green*, acute at the tip, 3-dented, distinctly keeled on the under side." 

It appears that P affine was a mottle leaved Paph with a "villosum" type flower. This is what one would expect from a natural hybrid of Paph. villosum and Paph. appletonianum or as the natural hybrid of these two species is known, Paphiopedilum x cribbii.


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