Paphiopedilum Lady Isabel/Lady Isobel

[Nickp]

Recently, I had some fun with a famous old grex that a lot of people may have in their collection. I was researching the origin of Paphiopedilum Lady Isabel (P. rothschildianum x stonei), trying to determine who the name referred to. The information that I found suggested that the grex name has been commonly misspelled for more than a century. I contacted Julian Shaw, the Orchid Registrar at RHS, to see what he thought. After some additional research, he agreed. The correct name for this grex is Paphiopedilum Lady Isobel, and the hybrid register has been updated to correct the spelling.

Details in a blog post that I wrote.

 

[richgarrison]

interesting blog post thanx for the post here! and since i have a clone of this..... thanx for the name update

 

[troy]

I liked it as well!! Thanks!!

 

[Silverwhisp]

What a great bit of sleuthing; well done! Lovely photo on your blog post, too.

 

[likespaphs]

cool!

 

[Nickp]

Lovely photo on your blog post, too.

Thanks. I got the plant from SVO a few months ago, but the flowers it had then didn’t survive shipping. I’m glad it decided to throw one more spike. Even though it only has two flowers this time, I can see what I have to look forward to.

 

[emydura]

Great detective work. Thanks for the update. It is one of my favourite hybrids as you can tell from my avatar.

 

[Ozpaph]

I wrote an article on this for our TAPS journal last year. Whilst the name has been registered incorrectly, can it be validly changed? I thought once it was registered it was 'set in stone'. It would be interesting to hear from a taxonomist.

 

[Nickp]

I wrote an article on this for our TAPS journal last year. Whilst the name has been registered incorrectly, can it be validly changed? I thought once it was registered it was 'set in stone'. It would be interesting to hear from a taxonomist.

That might be true for a species name, but taxonomists don’t care about artificial hybrids. Whether hybrid names can be changed is above my pay grade, but the Orchid Registrar didn't seem to have any doubt—indeed, it has already been changed. If you search for the online hybrid database, Lady Isobel comes up as the accepted name and Lady Isabel as a synonym.

 

[troy]

The orchid taxonomists are too busy messing with cattleyas lol..

 

[Ozpaph]

The orchid taxonomists are too busy messing with cattleyas lol..

Amen!

 

[musa]

Nick, thanks a lot for your research, its absolutely convincing!

 

[Guldal]

What a piece of orchid sleuthing! Your blog post is the most interesting and entertaining piece about paphs, I've read recently. Great job!

Kind regards, Jens

 

[ScientistKen]

Interestingly, I did the very same sleuthing over the weekend. I have a few stonei seedlings, so Ithought it would be interesting to lookup Lady Isabel awards in AOS registry to see how it breeds with roth... and there were no awarded Lady Isabel's! A Google search verified "my" spelling, so... I found awarded progeny of Lady Isabel, clicked on them to see parentage and found the alternate spelling that is used in the AOS awards directory.

 

[Guldal]

Actually, the name has not been 'changed' - the epithet of Mr. Thomas Statter, Esq.'s original clone, as Nickp so convincingly has argued, was Indeed Paphiopedilum Lady Isobel and it was back then referred to as such. So what the RHS registar has done is simply to correct a later, but 100+ year old misspelling.

I just reread Nick's article - and urge everybody to do the same! The first time round I missed the bit about Lady Isobel being one of the first female icehockey players - and if you follow the link, given by Nick, you'll find out, that she is also still commmemorated by an icehockey trophy carrying her name, The Lady Isobel Cup!

 

[Sherry H]

All so very interesting! Thank u. Just thought the flower and plant so beautiful - wanted Mike to be credited and see the bloom!

Great forum. Sherry

 

[Ozpaph]

the flower above isnt Lady Isabel.. could be LI x brachy

 

[Guldal]

Sherry's flower was diagnosed correctly by 'orchid527' in its own thread: Lady Isobel x conco-bellatulum!

 

[Ozpaph]

thanks. that makes sense

 

[PaphMadMan]

Registration corrections do happen. For years RHS had Bct. Little Mermaid listed as Little Marmaid, until they didn't. Mermaid was correct on the registration paperwork, but got mangled in RHS records.