Any Ideas?

[Trithor]

I imported a few plants many years ago. They all proved very difficult to grow and bloom. They were sold to me as 'new multifloral, new habitat, Maliau'
They do not like the same conditions as my kolos, phillis, roths, or others. Out of the original 17 plants I am left with 4 plants. They seem to be growing now. They obviously prefer much colder and shadier conditions to the other listed multis, and are now growing in pots with a fine aggregate in a SH system, and are kept with 'feet' constantly wet.
The flowers are normally in pairs, but also as in this flowering as a single. The background ground colour is near ice white and the bloom is about a third the size of a roths, slightly smaller than a kolo. The petals do tend to twist.
My initial impression was that it was a very small roths, perhaps stressed, but over the years, as I have improved the culture and the remaining plants are now growing well, the blooms remain consistent. I am left with the impression that it is from a distinct population of plants, perhaps a natural hybrid (but if so, with what?). Alternatively a genetically stable mutated population of ......what?
...........Opinions please!

:

 

[gonewild]

Are you confident the original plants were wild collected and not nursery grown?

 

[Denver]

No idea but I love the coloration on the pouch. More pictures please!

 

[John M]

New species! Paph. garyi. 'Would love to see more photos, please.

 

[Justin]

interesting! maybe a new species...

 

[Trithor]

More photos to follow, .. I will have more time over the weekend.
New species? Heh, heh, nice idea, but unlikely I fear. More likely to go down as a runt population of some odd wild hybrid. (I am the clown of the forum after all!)

 

[robx]

Whatever it is, it's super cool!

 

[AdamD]

Saminode looks like a Roth. Maybe a stable mutation? Who knows. Have you asked any taxonomists? (shudder)

 

[Trithor]

I can see the current consensus is to compare it to roths. So a hybrid of roths with what? Or a mutation of roths? I will do a few comparative pictures of this with a roths tomorrow. A bottle of well chilled white wine and I will even surprise myself with my own industriousness!

 

[Chicago Chad]

have you selfed one yet?

 

[TyroneGenade]

Paphiopedilum wilhelminae? I know it isn't anywhere near the Maliau Basin but Papua is wet and cool compared to Maliau Basin. It also doesn't seem to have more than 1 or 2 blooms at a time. But the stami and pouch color don't add up to wilhelminae and hybrids (William Ambler) don't match at all.

 

[eggshells]

Frontal shot please.

 

[gonewild]

If it's a distinct population then a species is more likely than a hybrid.

 

[John M]

If it's a distinct population then a species is more likely than a hybrid.

Agreed!

 

[John M]

More likely to go down as a runt population of some odd wild hybrid.

That's sort of what was said about Paph. thailandense for a long time. It was dismissed as a runt niveum.....wrong! Don't kid yourself Gary. There's a good chance this is a new species. Just from the one photo, the stripes on the pouch are very unique. If this is not just one plant showing this characteristic; but, there was/is a wild population like this, it's a good candidate for being recognised as a separate species. This is especially true since the flowering habit is very different from roth and the growing conditions are also very different from roth. You should check out that possibility of it being a new species with some taxonomists.....and propagate those plants - PLEASE!

 

[silence882]

The staminode looks like classic rothschildianum to me. I'd guess your plants are from a population that is slightly different from the classic roth. You may want to ask a taxonomist if it's worthy of formal description.

How sure are you on its collecting location as Maliau? That's quite a distance from the roth habitat.

 

[tomkalina]

Interesting. Have you bloomed any before this one and have any besides this clone exhibited similar pouch markings? The Maliau Basin is not very close to Gunong Kinabalu, 90-100 miles SSE, so perhaps not a roth variant - but it sure has that roth. "bent knee" look to the staminode.

 

[polyantha]

I am pretty sure that this is a roth. No hybrid for sure, because the roth staminode would show that. In fact there have to be lots of uniform plants to say it is a variety. Perhaps there are lots of those out there. Who knows?

 

[John M]

Of course, this may turn out to be just a variant of roth.....and I suppose it probably is a roth variant. However, just because the staminode looks like a roth's in that one photo, does not mean it definitely is a roth. Sure, it's closely related....just like many other species that have "sister" species. If you compare a stonei staminode to a praestans staminode, you'll see there's not much difference. There's not much difference between callosum and lawrenceanum; or lowii and haynaldianum. The point is that if there are any differences in the staminode of this plant, as compared to a "classic" roth, they will be small; but, they could still be significant in terms of deciding lineage.

Can you tell that I tend to be a splitter? There's no doubt that if used in breeding, this plant would produce very different looking hybrids as compared to some of the more often seen roth parent clones used today. For that reason, I prefer to split varieties off as separate species. That also helps to discourage inter-variety breeding and just calling the progeny by the species name, when in actuality, the offspring look more like a hybrid, not either of the pure species' varieties.

 

[cnycharles]

It's very cool looking, I hope it's figured out what it is and you can get them growing better