Schoenorchis tixieri

[naoki]

I started to wonder about the difference between Schoenorchis tixieri and S. fragrans. So I read a little bit about them (not much info I could find), and wrote down my current understanding to my Orchid Borealis blog post (link here). I'm still trying to understand the situation, so I'll update it if I learn more.

Seidenfaden (1998, p.69) briefly mentioned his observation based on the type specimen of S. tixieri from Dalat. He hadn't seen any other specimens of S. tixieri, so he did not make any conclusion about the synonymy of S. tixieri. The type specimen of S. tixieri differs from S. fragrns in the callosities (calluses) on the lip and the protruding upwards bent tridentate (3-toothed) front edge of the operculum (anther cap).

I'll leave the detail to the blog post, but here is the photo which might be showing the 3-toothes anther cap. See the bottom edge of the yellow part (anther cap). If you happen to have a detailed photo of the anther cap of S. fragrans, I'd love to use it in my blog post. Please let me know.

Even without the photos, if you have S. fragrans or S. tixieri, I'd like to hear about the shape of anther cap and the hump on the lip (whether it is 3-toothed or just 1-toothed with the other 2-teeth more rounded and the humb on the lip has a groove or not).

Schoenorchis tixieri on Flickr

lip callus. The difference in callus shape isn't too clear to me. But if you look at the photo above (the one showing the 3-toothed anther cap), there appears to be a shallow groove in the middle of the callus hump. So it looks like a bit like the Rolling Stones' tongue.

Schoenorchis tixieri (lip profile) on Flickr

lip shape from the top view

Schoenorchis tixieri (lip top view) on Flickr

Spur bends at 90-degree angle like S. fragrans:

Schoenorchis tixieri on Flickr


Schoenorchis tixieri on Flickr

In one paper, Averyanov seems to consider S. tixieri as a synonym, but his later paper was still using S. tixieri. So I'm not sure about his position about this issue.

 

[blondie]

Lovely little flowr and plant

 

[NYEric]

My fragrans is not fragrant, maybe it's tixieri.

 

[SlipperFan]

Marvelous photos, naoki! The next time my fragrans blooms, I'll try to take some close-ups.

 

[Hamlet]

I cannot help you with the taxonomy but, as usual, I appreciate your informative post and the excellent photography!

 

[Daniel Herrera]

Amazing photography! how do you do it? Also, great plant!

 

[naoki]

Thank you all.

Dot, that would be great if you can take the photo of the column!

Eric, I couldn't detect any fragrance from my S. tixieri, neither. Reichenbach's original description of S. fragrans mentions that the collector noted the smell of Violet (link here under Saccolabium fragrans). But I'm not sure if its a good distinguishing character. If you have 10x loupe, you should take a look at the shape of the anther cap.

Daniel, I'm just fortunate to have a camera and lens which make macro photography easy. The camera (Olympus E-M1) can do something called focus stacking; it automatically takes 8 shots by changing the focus point slightly, and the camera automatically combines the well focused regions into one final photo. 60mm macro lens from Olympus is also amazing performer for such a cheap price. Since Olympus camera has a smaller sensor (four-third sensor), you get about 2x more magnification in comparison to a full frame camera (e.g. Nikon D610) with 1:1 macro lens. I also had to crop heavily to get the magnification. In fact, the lip photos are 1:1 cropping.

With this set-up, it is pretty easy to do. The only difficult part is the angle of lighting. But I use LED-based light (instead of speed light), I can easily adjust the position and see the light. With speed light, it used to took many trials to get the light position adjusted. The LED is just house-hold LED bulbs with high CRI (I previously mentioned about it here). But now I have 4 bulbs per fixture using this holder. Most of the photos here are illuminated by 2 light sources from the sides (about 90-110 degree from the axis, one on the left and the other on the right), slightly above the subject.

Something like this:

In this photo, I wasn't using the light inside of the soft box (the black thing on the right side) because 1 bulb wasn't strong enough for the soft box. But with 4 bulbs, I can use the soft box.

 

[naoki]

I updated the blog post. Marni Turkel kindly offered me to use her photo of S. fragrans in the blog post. So with her photo, the difference in the anther cap shape can be clearly seen.

 

[abax]

Amazing color in such a small package! The photos are
wonderful as well.

 

[naoki]

I came across a recent paper describing a new species, S. phitamii, from S. Vietnam. Averyanov included a key and photos of related species, and he is now clearly recognizing S. tixieri as a separate species from S. fragrans. S. fragrans has a denser inflorescence, and the length of the lip is shorter (in addition to the shape of the the anther cap). I updated the blog post with this new info.

Averyanov, L.V., Nguyen, V.C., Nong, V.D., Maisak, T.V. 2017. Schoenorchis phitamii spec. nov. Aver., eine neue, dekorative Miniaturorchidee aus Südvietnam (Schoenorchis phitamii spec. nov. Aver., a new ornamental miniature orchid species from Southern Vietnam). Die Orchidee 3(4): 21-32 (PDF)

 

[e-spice]

Like others have said (and I have said before) you're a fantastic photographer and your work is amazing.

 

[Ozpaph]

masterful photography

 

[Happypaphy7]

Wow~ amazing shots!!
When the photos came on the screen, my eyes went "pop"!! lol
Will be amazing as a background image.
Thank you for sharing.

 

[naoki]

Thank you, all. The in-camera focus stucking is useful for those super tiny flowers. Now, looking at this older photos, you are right, it pops too much... I should have used a little less contrasty lighting (or different color setting in the camera)...

 

[Don I]

Very nice.
Don