Sorry,
Most esquirolei actually are "genuine", because the original wild collected stock has been divided for years. I think nearly all plants available in the USA, except imported from Europe, then I would be careful.
Nearly all plants available in the USA are genuine, except imported from Europe...
I know that everybody is going to yell at me for being political incorrect again.
But after reading so many well researched posts with backing up data from Sanderianum, I really want to stand next to the forest edge and waiting for the tribesmen to bring out the collected plants.
I don't mind hybrids, I just hate to buy a plant (hybrids or species) that is not what it supposed to be.
Because of all of this carelessness, I doubt that any of the hybrids we own actually true to the formula registered in RHS.
It is very true. There are a few species where hybrids have spoiled heavily the gene pool. Some example:
- I have bought plants from Mu Orchids, very reputed grower of leucochilum. Those were unbloomed seedlings. None of them turned out to be leucochilum, they had all some niveum, or bellatulum inside, does not matter the cross he sold to me. Even some of his "selected concolor" with flat round flowers are hybrids, they have special batches to make those selected concolors, and when they bloom they throw away all the ang-thong and bellatulum looking ones. Most of the gene pool in Thailand for the "selected" leucochilum, niveum, ang-thong and concolor is corrupt by other species.
- Callosum, barbatum, superbiens ( quite a few Cymatodes x superbiens, or superbiens x curtisii around)
- Many insigne, gratrixianum, villosum
- A lot of large praestans from seed from Europe ( they are actually a backcross of praestans on roth x praestans)
- All the large flowered primulinum and glaucophyllum are in fact screened plant from a Dutch pot-plant nursery. Same for the primulinum "4N" ( I did some, and the leaves are still narrow). Even the primulinum bred by the Orchid Zone before were that pot-plant hybrid. They got their plant through an english middleman that went to Netherlands to pick up those fake primulinum and sell at premium price along with rothschildianum album seedlings, Eric Young divisions, roth Mt Millais selfing passed as divisions, primulinum 4n, esquirolei Taka FCC/AOS x self (Taka is borderline sterile actually, yield only a few seedlings. It is a 3n plant)...
- Many liemianum as well are in fact hybrids
- glaucophyllum album is another Pinnochio yellow that had the luck to have glaucous leaves. It has been selfed, but in the selfing there were some seedlings with dark green leaves. Tossed out.
- Some of the esquirolei, some philippinense ( I think Birdy can show picture of an hybrid from Netherlands that looks like a philippinense), now lowii, haynaldianum...
- jackii, and malipoense, with the hybrids populations around...
- tranlienianum 'red' ( there are very few wild plants that do exist, actually), most of the ones in the trade are coccineum x tranlienianum
- very soon the red type of hangianum, a lot of emersonii x hangianum start to bloom, some very difficult to tell apart from hangianum.
Those are just the few examples I am thinking about right now.
The other problem is that the growers who keep record of their parent stock, and do everything internally, like AnTec or the Orchid Zone, know the history of the parents they use. The people who resell Taiwanese stock or European stock have absolutely NO CLUE as how the parent looks like. But the former cannot compete with the latter at all, in terms of price. And many hobbyists will go for the cheaper source anyway.
Thanks Sanderianum. This is my Esquirolei which I haven't had all that long but on checking, the seller actually brought it back from Asia, he said it was a collected plant and not a seedling but thats debatable I suppose. The flower is old and marked but the best of the 3 on the plant.
If he brought it back from Asia, it is esquirolei. Esquirolei is :
- Not a plant worth anything in Asia, so making seedlings would be like US people making dandelion seedlings...
- Not much in demand anyway. Except some selected varieties, the flowers are a little bit "boring".
- Quite difficult to germinate quickly and abundantly. That's something very funny, as there are literally hundreds of thousands of plants in some single colonies. I found out that quite a few species ( micranthum, hangianum, esquirolei, tigrinum, emersonii, randsii) germinate very quickly and very well on wild seeds, then the next year, they germinate OK, and the next year, they do not yield many seedlings, if at all. I guess it has something to do with mineral nutrition of the mother plants. Anyway.
On the other side, esquirolei x hirsutissimum, or esquirolei x tranlienianum germinate very quickly and heavily. Same stands true for helenae, the pure species yield not that many protocorms, but helenae x barbigerum has a very high yield.
For Pete's sake, Jim, get that plant inside before it freezes solid! 
