Paph. lowii 'Horizontal' Revisited

Usually when Paph. lowii 'Horizontal' blooms, it blooms 6 months later compared to the regular lowii's. The seedling of Paph. lowii 'Horizontal' x self however was blooming together with a regular lowii, so this time I could compare the two flowers side by side, and even noticed a few more differences!



The obvious differences are:
-The "Horizontal" form has more horizontal standing petals, that don't make a 180 degree twist
- The Horizontal form has a more compact plant shape with leaves that stand up more.
- The dorsal is more green in color

Flower of Horizontal form:


Flower of regular lowii:


Looking more closely I noticed these other differences:

The staminodal shield of the regular lowii has a distinct point. On the Horizontal form it is not as distinct.

Staminode of Horizontal form:






Staminode of regular lowii:







The ovary and the flower stem of the Horizontal form is much more hairy compared to the regular form

ovary and stem of Horizontal form:





ovary and stem of regular lowii:





Robert

Cool comparison! :clap:

Thanks for sharing this comparison, I have a seedling of this "Horizontal" and I look forward to comparing one day myself. Have any of you heard of a lowii variety called vinivolor. I think this vini color would be awesome for breeding.

Thanks so much for posting that. I was just reading an article on lowii's so this explained a whole bunch!

Beautiful photos as well. Excellent job!

Doc,

I love stuff like this! It's more distince than hir and esq IMO. The spots on the petals seem to be arranged more or less in rows in the horizontal vs random in regular. Send a pickle to a taxonomist that actually looks at minutia (not HK) ! I'm super curious to see that comes of it. Cool!

-Ernie

There's no dark color in the weightlifter lowii's dorsal at all. Since the RHS is slinging so much BS around this week maybe you can get it recognized as a new species!

Is another difference that there is no twisting in the petals of the 'horizontal'? Don't most lowii's tend to do that, like in the second plant pictured?

Kevin said:

Is another difference that there is no twisting in the petals of the 'horizontal'? Don't most lowii's tend to do that, like in the second plant pictured?

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Correct, yes that is another difference (I edited this difference above in my description, so thanks for pointing that out)

Robert

This is the greatest comparison I have ever seen!!! Amazing photos!!! Congrats Robert:clap:

Interesting, Robert. Do you think it is a new variety?

That was very interesting. Are you going to use this one in breeding and would the names be the same as established crosses? Just curious.

Ernie said:

Doc,

I love stuff like this! It's more distince than hir and esq IMO. The spots on the petals seem to be arranged more or less in rows in the horizontal vs random in regular. Send a pickle to a taxonomist that actually looks at minutia (not HK) ! I'm super curious to see that comes of it. Cool!

-Ernie

Click to expand...

I agree with the hir/esq comparison, and I think it verges on the differences between parrishii and dianthum too.

Maybe we could also push for lumping callosum/lawrencianum/barbatum, hookerae/volunteanum, the appletoniaum complex, and all the brachies into just 4 species:evil::evil:

Hera said:

That was very interesting. Are you going to use this one in breeding and would the names be the same as established crosses? Just curious.

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Yes, we have tried breeding with this form/variety of lowii. If you go to a previous thread you can see a picture of a Paph. Julius (lowii x rothschildianum) that we made with this cross: http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9773 I backcrossed that plant to a rothschildianum again. If you look at the Julius made with this plant, it does look different compared to a Julius made with a regular lowii.

If the Registrar would consider this to be a different variety of lowii, he might consider calling a grex made with this plant as a "sub grex"; the registrar refers to these as "groups" within a grex so the Julius made with this plant could be Paph. Julius "Horizontal group". He did this to a grex I made; I tried registering Paph. primulinum x Paph. moquetteanum as Paph. Gepetto. Unfortunately someone else had just registered that same cross two weeks prior and named it Paph. Cloud's Prime Crystal. As I had used a 4N primulinum to make the cross, and had given a in-depth description of the hybrid; it revealed that the plants were indeed different compared to a regular Paph. Cloud's Prime Crystal. Thus my plant are listed as Paph. Cloud's Prime Cystal "Gepetto Group".

SlipperFan said:

Interesting, Robert. Do you think it is a new variety?

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If we find more plants out there that share the same characteristics, and we know for sure that they come from the same area of Borneo, than yes, as there are enough differences between this plant and a regular lowii, that I would consider it to be a different variety. I have proofed by selfing it, that the characteristics are stable, and get inherited to the progeny, another sign that we are indeed dealing with a natural variety.

Robert

Hi Robert,

We also have a Paph. lowii horizontal type in our collection, and I think Jerry and I bought these at the same time from Taylor Orchids years ago, so they may or may not be the same clone. Have you thought of describing this formally? I think there are enough differing characteristics to separate it from lowii - at least as a variety.

Thanks, Tom

Thanks Tom for the picture. Your plant does look very similar to the one we have. And yes I think I should probably describe it. I would not go so far to call it a different species, but I do think the differences are big enough to call it a different variety.

Robert

You could call it Paph. lowii var tomnjerryioke:

tomkalina said:

You could call it Paph. lowii var tomnjerryioke:

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:rollhappy:

:clap::clap::clap::rollhappy::rollhappy::rollhappy::rollhappy:

tomkalina said:

You could call it Paph. lowii var tomnjerryioke:

Click to expand...

I love it! :clap: