Cattleya walkeriana species or hybrid

[tomp]

This lovely came labeled as a sib-cross walkeriana. I know we have serious walker experts on this forum. My question is straight species or maybe a sneaky hybrid? I know I should be able to but can’t make up my mind.

 

[DrLeslieEe]

Tom, the flower looks like a walkeriana except in one aspect. The side lobes are corrugated. I have not seen a walkeriana with that. The species complex that introduces this trait to its progeny is loddigesii/harrisoniana. Perhaps that’s in its background?

Can we see the plant, leaves and flower stalk? And back of the flower?

 

[SlipperKing]

I was curious about the side lobs DrLeslieEe mentioned so I looked at my blue walker. It does have a hint of waves to its lobs, not as pronounced. My two normal colored forms have already faded so no help looking at my pics.
Here is the blue-closeup

 

[SlipperKing]

Even more curiosity got to me!
I remembered a plant demo in Fowlie's book, "The Brazilian Bifoliate Cattleyas and Their Color Varieties" Cattleya x dolosa


And here is the illustration from the book


And from the Gardeners' Chronicle


Finally two different flower pics from the book



Notice in the line drawing illustration the plant has two leaves on some growths.
I guess my point is, maybe your walk has this natural hybrid in its background. Has your plant ever had two leaves? I would think your flowers would have yellow/ white in the lip if it where a primary hybrid.

 

[tomp]

Rick, thanks for your very informative post. I will reinspect With these details in mind.

 

[Katahdin]

I read somewhere that the best way to tell if a "walkeriana" has hybrid lineage is to look at the lip. If the lip has a rough edge and / or is rippled, it likely has some loddigesii or harrisoniana in its background. This makes sense because both those species have rippled lips, and known hybrids such as "pendentive", "kenny", "estrala da colina"(this one is selfed all the time due to excellent results and the lip varies).

Yours looks suspicious based on this method. In fact it looks a bit like my selfing of "estrala da colina".

I don't think there is a reason to care if the introgression is at the level of "estrala da colina" or less, such as in SVO's walkers. Clearly there is a lot of gene transfer between these species in the wild because of the large number of natural hybrid specimens. That being said, "kenny" and "pendentive" don't really look like normal walkerianas in multiple aspects, and its ridiculous that they continue to be sold and awarded as such.

 

[Carmella.carey]

I was curious about the side lobs DrLeslieEe mentioned so I looked at my blue walker. It does have a hint of waves to its lobs, not as pronounced. My two normal colored forms have already faded so no help looking at my pics.
Here is the blue-closeup
View attachment 33439

It looks like it has some nobilior in it. Is it unifoilet or bifoilet or a bit of both?

 

[tomp]

It looks like it has some nobilior in it. Is it unifoilet or bifoilet or a bit of both?

I will reply next week

 

[Ozpaph]

I think they are both, possibly, hybrids.

 

[Carmella.carey]

I think when nobilior was C.walkeriana var.nobilior there were some hybrids made with out knowing they thought they were trying to make better varietys of walker but didn't know that in the future nobilior would become its own species and those hybrids still labeled walkeriana cross_____ where then used in walker line breeding.
Patrick