Rothschildianum x sib (Imperial Wings x Giant Wings GM/WOC) in bloom

[treefrog]

Never got a true roth out of the compot I bought

Darn, this is the information I was scare to see at some points!

 

[Justin]

In his defense, Sam did sell good roths that were true to label many years ago, before all the problems.

Here are a couple examples of good quality roths from Sam from over 10-15 years ago. The Rex x Perfection is a first blooming from a 2007 flask, made with pollen from Lien Luu. (EDIT this is roth 'Best of 2015' which is Yellow Tiger x Scorpion King.)

The second plant is from one of Sam's first round of TON imports. I bought this as a BS plant around 2010 or 2013 maybe.

In the group I bought some plants came with an actual TON label in the pot (some didn't). This one is Spring Monarch x Western Queen.

Both are what you would expect from the good end of (Val x MM) x (Rex/Rex x MM).

 

[Duck Slipper]

In one of my visits to OI, Sam expressed a great amount of disdain and frustration with who was doing his flasking. They were also raising them to seedlings, and at that time he was doing it his self. He commented on how much work it was.
Sam also talked about his help, a young kid who told me he had been there 12 years. They, the two of them did all the work...So, maybe, between a flasking service that he was very unhappy with, him being in his 70's and having some health issues, sadly we are seeing some of the repercussions.
He showed me his malipoense bench, with some albino bloomed malipoense on three foot spikes...he said he had the best malipoense "In the world"! Yes, I do believe he had a excellent collection of stud plants, it was his life, his passion.
I witnessed his Roth benches with first time bloomers and his personal Roth bench that he originally said wasn't for sale, he had perhaps a of Roths. He picked out a first bloom Mont Millais cross with a bloom spike that had 4 flowers and the spike was close to 3/4"across. He said if he was moving off, he would take that Roth with him, and he gave it to me.
I personally believe it was a number of consequences, including his failing health, that added up to the problems we are seeing today.
As for the Mont Millais Roth, it has a sheath now, no other Roths have budded this early for me, it might be a blind sheath as it has just been sitting there, not really growing. We shall see...

 

[Justin]

Yeah anyone who saw Sam's displays at shows back then could also see with their own eyes all his really great stuff. He got dozens of awards.

 

[Justin]

Oh my bad actually, the first roth I posted was a select plant from Sam 'Best of 2015.' It is 'Yellow Tiger' x 'Scopion King.' I can't find my pic of Rex x Perfection but it was pretty good too

 

[CharlesD]

In his defense, Sam did sell good roths that were true to label many years ago, before all the problems.

Here are a couple examples of good quality roths from Sam from over 10-15 years ago. The Rex x Perfection is a first blooming from a 2007 flask, made with pollen from Lien Luu.

The second plant is from one of Sam's first round of TON imports. I bought this as a BS plant around 2010 or 2013 maybe.

In the group I bought some plants came with an actual TON label in the pot (some didn't). This one is Spring Monarch x Western Queen.

Both are what you would expect from the good end of (Val x MM) x (Rex/Rex x MM).

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Thanks for more background info Justin. You and others on this forum have much more experience with his plants. Sam was only ever super nice to me at the time and the plants I got were all super healthy. Never bloomed so who will know. I think they were a mix of the crosses you are talking about and some later ones with TON flavor. For awards I meant roths specifically - I just would have thought he would have had something really good awarded over all those years with that quality of plants. But yes I am speculating...

 

[Tony]

So they were definitely roths but given what I’ve seen and looking at how many people actually have bloomed nice stuff from there I’m doubtful they were true to their pedigree. What is your opinion from what you’ve seen from that period? I just remember that back then I just thought these must be the best but I didn’t put too much thought into provenance or the really limited gene pool of actually nice parents.

They all had giant wings or tarantula or Canadian club as the parents. I just feel given how he seemed to ubiquitously have all of these really well bred roths it seems logical in retrospect that many weren’t true to the parents

Every labeled roths I have bloomed from OI has been a roths but they have been consistently mediocre and I doubt the parentage is true.

 

[Tony]

I will say his non Roth material was often truly very good. And it may not have been him mislabeling the roths and multis.

This has been my experience as well when the labels are right. I got an FCC on an OI Hsinying Anita, an 89 point AM on a Wössner Black Wings, and I have at least two more awardable WBW that I'm holding back to submit as more mature plants.

 

[jtrmd]

In his defense, Sam did sell good roths that were true to label many years ago, before all the problems.

Here are a couple examples of good quality roths from Sam from over 10-15 years ago. The Rex x Perfection is a first blooming from a 2007 flask, made with pollen from Lien Luu. (EDIT this is roth 'Best of 2015' which is Yellow Tiger x Scorpion King.)

The second plant is from one of Sam's first round of TON imports. I bought this as a BS plant around 2010 or 2013 maybe.

In the group I bought some plants came with an actual TON label in the pot (some didn't). This one is Spring Monarch x Western Queen.

Both are what you would expect from the good end of (Val x MM) x (Rex/Rex x MM).

I have no doubt he did. I bloomed some nice true to label tigrinums, and other species from him. Its just been my luck when it comes to a nice quality Roth has been something hard for me to bloom out from seedlings. Mislabeling happens and I have had it happen from many nurseries.

 

[emydura]

The Rex x Perfection is a first blooming from a 2007 flask, made with pollen from Lien Luu. (EDIT this is roth 'Best of 2015' which is Yellow Tiger x Scorpion King.)

Did Sam have a relationship with Lien Luu? I have a FS seedling of a roth cross 'Jim Krull' FCC/AOC x 'Canadian Club' GM. A beautiful looking plant with wide leaves that should flower later this year. The plant came out of a flask from Sam, but as far as I am aware, Sam didn't own either clone. But Lien Luu did. Sam had a few crosses with 'Canadian Club' but not a lot. Possibly he used the pollen from Lien Luu's plant.

It would seem to me that Sam was using pollen from other people's plants. So I guess that is another potential area for error/fraud.