Paphiopedilum villosum

Finally, after waiting for almost 4 years, my Paph. villosum is in flower!
Now you might think that is not that long to wait for a seedling to grow to flowering size. But actually, it was pretty much the same size when I bought it as it is now.

I know the general consensus seems to be the perfect flower has to be flat, but personally, I love twisted, wind-swept, funnel-shaped flowers. So I'm quite happy.

The staminode is amazing, too. So weird and glistening, hairy, barbed and with that protruding green blob. This is why I love slipper orchids.

I almost don't dare to ask, after waiting this long, but.... experts, do you think this is a true villosum?...

I'm no expert, but I like it to. Congrats!

There are many varieties of villosum (http://slipperorchids.info/paphdatasheets/paphiopedilum/villosum/index.html}, and I don't see anything that shows that yours is not villosum.

Congratulations on flowering your Paph! It's got very nice markings! I haven't grown this species, but to me it looks like Paph gratrixianum, a pretty one at that!

@Dot

I religiously visit that website... that's what made me suspicious in the first place. I could not find a villosum that has this kind of sepal markings. White, with both a purplish fade and with dark spots.
It seems like a mix between the var annamnense and var boxallii.

@Jennifer

The sepal coloration does look more like gratrixianum...


Maybe I should have posted this in identification instead.

Lint said:

@Dot

I religiously visit that website... that's what made me suspicious in the first place. I could not find a villosum that has this kind of sepal markings. White, with both a purplish fade and with dark spots.
It seems like a mix between the var annamnense and var boxallii.

Click to expand...

Nothing exactly like this, but combining several, which is what hybridizers do.

Under the "lumpers" definition of villosum, this is definitely villosum. It is a wide spread species, almost every mountain valley has its own unique color form. The "splitters" try to elevate every variation to species. One could go mad trying to sort the these variations out, especially since most have no provenance - without the exact collection location, it is hard to say anything definitive. So call it villosum with confidence, and nod your head and remember sorting it down further is guess work at best, in spite of assertions to the contrary.

Though with the above thought in mind, of the villosum varieties, gratrixianum is a "good guess".

Attractive bloom. I sympathize with your frustration at not being able to confidently place it into a neat and well defined 'box'. That dilemma plagues me often enough as well. This whole group villosum/boxalli/gratrixianum, the callosum/barbatum and appletonianum/hainanense/bullenianum amoungst others will frustrate and defy your attempts to make things neat. Very frustrating at times, but they make for interesting threads.

Looks like a cool villosum to me. "Horse of a different color"

very nice!