Mystery Paphs and other stuff

[TyroneGenade]

Hi all,

This is a plant at our May orchid society meeting which was labeled Paph insigne.



Here is a close-up:



Anyone else have an insigne which gives two flowers per stem and is also free flowering? There was a pod on the plant which the owner says is only 6 months old (so the plant flowered in early summer!). It is a lovely robust plant. Perhaps polyploid?

This is a photo of a plant I won at last night's raffel:



Any guesses to what the tag says? Scroll down for the answer... In the mean time here is my Restrepia guttulata:



There is another flower on the way. I tried photographing my Restrepia trichoglossa but its flowers were too small for my Sony-Cypershot. I'm very impressed with the size and presentation of the guttulata. There is another flower on the way It is grown in 5mm gravel and peat fibre in a 5 cm clay pot. It stands on a soggy bed of wet sphagnum moss in a plastic pot hung against the back wall of my orchid shed.

This is Slc. (or is it Sc?) Crystelle Smith "BK Orchids" from Carter & Holmes. Not as nice as the one Todd posted a while back but still pretty. The first photo is with a flash and the second without.





Its looks different to the plant on Cater & Holmes' website (http://www.carterandholmes.com/Merc...een=PROD&Product_Code=7129M/25&Category_Code= ). A mutant mericlone perhaps or just the weather?

Back to the raffel Paph. The tag says Winston Churchill! It doesn't say "Redoubtable" or "Indomitable" (which it is obviously not) but does have WC characters like the large synsepal and nicely spotted dorsal. The flower looks and feel old but has a hint of strong glossy substance. Could this be one of the siblings that never made it to fame and stardom? The flower is BIG but not as big as the flower of my avatar. There were a some Winston Promise progeny plants (in flower) on sale at the meeting but none looked nearly as nice as this raffel plant.

Thoughts and opinions? Paul, you still out there?

 

[biothanasis]

great flowers!!! Could you get a photo (if possible) of the set up you have the restrepia in, so that I get a view of how you made it? TYIA!!!!!

 

[TyroneGenade]

Hi Biothanasis,

I will see what I can do. I'm almost 100% sure someone will chip in on that photo and say thats not how its done.

I'm using 50% shade cloth. The shade house isn't closed on one side and gets a lot of reflected light (afternoon sun) from the white painted walls. They are in their clay pot inside a plastic pot which was hung against the wall that blocks the afternoon sun. They get a good dose of morning sun. The plastic pot is filled with sphagnum and kept wet so there is always high humidity and lots of evaporative cooling. So far so good... This plant is still flowering on the "old" leaves it had before I got it. If I can get flowers on new leaves then I would say that this system is working.

 

[PaphMadMan]

The easiest thing to comment on: The official registration is now C. Crystelle Smith. The original was Sc. It was never Slc.

I don't think the 'BK Orchids' is correct. If Carter and Holmes pic is correct, both the shape and color of the lip of your plant seem outside the range of variation I'd expect from environmental or nutrition differences. And if it did mutate in the cloning process it is no longer 'BK Orchids'.

 

[Bob in Albany N.Y.]

Winston Churchill is still being made to this day. I have 4 seedlings of it currently growing in my greenhouse.

 

[TyroneGenade]

Thanks for the info Kirk. I will wait for the Crystelle Smith to bloom again and see what it looks like then. Maybe it will be an award quality plant one day and then I can give it a name. In the mean time its simply beautiful.

Winston Churchill is still being made to this day. I have 4 seedlings of it currently growing in my greenhouse.

Interesting news Bob. Maybe my plant is one of these new WCs... I will ask around and see who donated the plant. This isn't the first flowering so unless the plant was ill treated that bloom is probably not much worse than as good as it gets (it is a bit old and the medium seems rather dry so maybe it didn't open fully). Still, it is an aesthetically pleasing bloom.

I hope those WC seedlings bloom soon so we can all see what they look like.

I'm tempted to put the pollen from my WC onto my avatar to round out the shape a bit and see what turns out (I have little better to do...).

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

Love the Restrepia! Interesting Crystelle Smith. I've never seen one with a solid red lip like that before - usually there is at least some yellow. Beautiful regardless.

 

[PaphMadMan]

Thanks for the info Kirk. I will wait for the Crystelle Smith to bloom again and see what it looks like then. Maybe it will be an award quality plant one day and then I can give it a name. In the mean time its simply beautiful.

As long as it does not seem to match a previously named clone you can give it a name now. No need to wait till it is awarded unless you want to.

 

[SlipperFan]

Not sure, but I think Crystelle Smith is somewhat variable in color. Yours is very pretty.

 

[TyroneGenade]

Love the Restrepia! Interesting Crystelle Smith. I've never seen one with a solid red lip like that before - usually there is at least some yellow. Beautiful regardless.

There is some yellow. The flute of the lip is yellow but the inside is all red where normally there is just a dab of red. Mine has a slight fragrance as well.

Thanks for the info Kirk.

No comments on the giant insigne in the first 2 pictures? That one intrigues me the most.

 

[Bob in Albany N.Y.]

I hate to say it but I was wrong. Upon further examination it turns out that I actually have seedlings of Winston Churchill 'Indomitable' FCC/AOS x self, rather than a remake of the classic.

 

[paphioboy]

No comments on the giant insigne in the first 2 pictures? That one intrigues me the most.

I want it!! Very nice, all of them..