Phragmipedium sargentianum 'Really Red' x self

[naoki]

Eron (eaborne) posted a very cool P. sargentianum 'Really Red' a couple years ago (link to the thread). JC flasked selfed seeds of this plant, and distributed them in spring 2015. Here are the first two plants which flowered.

It is very interesting that they are not red like Eron's. We'll see how others will look like maybe next year. Also if you compare the pouch shape, the first and second plant look a bit different. If you look at the area below the pouch opening, the second plant has much narrower "waist". It is somewhat similar to the difference in the lip shapes between P. caudatum vs P. humboldtii.

I was reading Cribb and Purver's Slipper Orchids of the Tropical Amaericas, and they mention that one of the differences between P. sargentianum and P. lindleyanum is that the shape of dorsal sepal; elliptic in P. lindleyanum and lanceolate in P. sargentianum. Apparently, these two plants have elliptic dorsal sepals. Interesting...

I'm guessing a couple other people here are growing this cross. It would be cool to see the photos of other offspring.


Plant 1 (the fastest grower)


Phragmipedium sargentianum 'Really Red' x self on Flickr


Phragmipedium sargentianum 'Really Red' x self on Flickr


Phragmipedium sargentianum 'Really Red' x self on Flickr


plant 2:

Phragmipedium sargentianum 'Really Red' x self on Flickr


Phragmipedium sargentianum 'Really Red' x self on Flickr

1st plant (right) and 2nd plant (left). The leaves are quite damaged; the battle scars from some chemical treatments against bush snails. Even though the plants look like craps, they are doing well now. I think the first plant has 3 growths.

Phragmipedium sargentianum 'Really Red' x self on Flickr

 

[eaborne]

Too bad these did not inherit the darker red color from the parent. Hopefully you'll have one(or more) in your batch that do. Also, the dorsal sepal in these two clones are narrower than my parent plant.

Here is a slide from my Phragmipedium presentation that shows details of the staminodes in the Platypetalum Section. They are all very similar and yours more closely resembles a sargentianum.

 

[tomkalina]

Who is "JC"?

 

[eaborne]

Who is "JC"?

John Chant. I sent both you and him some seed.

 

[tomkalina]

I'm amazed he (Naoki) was able to grow these to blooming size already. Ours are still a ways away from blooming, with 6-8" leaf spans. Maybe better environmental conditions.

 

[eaborne]

Here is a quick cell phone pic of the parent plant 'Really Red' in bloom now in my greenhouse. We have been in the mid 90's(day) and 70's at Night for the past few weeks now here in Louisiana, so the color is not as dark as during the winter, but still very red!

 

[eaborne]

I'm amazed he (Naoki) was able to grow these to blooming size already. Ours are still a ways away from blooming, with 6-8" leaf spans. Maybe better environmental conditions.

I totally agree and am very surprised myself. I did not get any flasks to raise up but I'm curious how far along mine would have been. But Naoki's plants sure got to blooming size fast.

 

[tomkalina]

I exchanged a few of the seedlings with Jerry Fischer a year or so back and the one's he's offering on the OL website today only have 13-15 cm leaf spans ( 5-6 inches) - pretty similar in size now to the one's we kept.

 

[naoki]

Thank you very much for the slide, Eron! It is interesting that the dorsal shape of the parent is more lanceolate (i.e. the bottom part is fatter than symmetric elliptic shape).

Tom, I went down to check how others are doing, and they are smaller than or around the leaf span of 6-8" except the 3 biggest plants. I haven't paid much attention to these recently, but I realized that I lost lots of plants! I knew I lost quite a few when I used some chemical treatments, but only 50% survival rate from the flask.... So these two are exceptions. The plant 1 was a really crazy grower; the longest leaf is 10", and there are 2 additional growths which are getting close to mature. The plant 2 has 9" long leaves, but it is a single growth + 1 start. The 3rd plant, which might flower next year, is about 7" leaf, single growth, and the rest are less than 1/2 size (<4" leaf length) of these top 3 growers. There are always quite a bit of variations from a single flask, but I've never seen such a huge variation like this.

 

[eaborne]

Here is my clone of sargentianum 'Whippoorwill' which came from Tom Larkin. It too has the same staminodal shape as 'Really Red'. Also, Orchids Limited's Fernbrook clone(pic on their website,) again has the exact staminode shape as these two. They all seem to not be exactly elliptic, so there must be some variation. Obviously some may be more elliptic than others. What is also uniform on these clones is the bottom of the staminodes. Unlike lindleyanum with the point at the center, the base of these sargentianums all match the picture. It seems like even the two staminodes on the two you posted have slight variation. The staminode on your second plant to flower looks to be elliptic.

Phrag. sargentianum 'Whippoorwill'

 

[abax]

Love the red piping around the petals.

 

[naoki]

Here is my clone of sargentianum 'Whippoorwill' which came from Tom Larkin. It too has the same staminodal shape as 'Really Red'. Also, Orchids Limited's Fernbrook clone(pic on their website,) again has the exact staminode shape as these two. They all seem to not be exactly elliptic, so there must be some variation. Obviously some may be more elliptic than others. What is also uniform on these clones is the bottom of the staminodes. Unlike lindleyanum with the point at the center, the base of these sargentianums all match the picture. It seems like even the two staminodes on the two you posted have slight variation. The staminode on your second plant to flower looks to be elliptic.

Eron, thank you for additional info! I agree that the staminodal shape seems to be similar among 'Really Red', its kids, and 'Whipporwill'. My 2nd plant seems different in the photo, but it is probably due to the differences in the angle. When I look at the plants, they look very similar.

Cribb's book discusses that one of the differences is the shape of the dorsal sepal. With 'Whippoorwill', it seems more lanceolate, but the edge is a bit reflexed, so it is difficult to say. 'Really Red' shows the lanceolate shape like the illustration. But its kids show more symmetric shape (elliptic) when I flatten the dorsal sepal. The shape difference could be not a bit vague, but I wonder if the dorsal sepal isn't a good character to differentiate P. lindleyanum and P. sargentianum. The other character the book mentions is yellow margin of P. lindleyanum leaves vs no yellow margin in P. sargentianum.

 

[NYEric]

John Chant. I sent both you and him some seed.

John's are probably not doing so well! :evil: