Cattleya x dolosa and Heathii 1

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The plant I am discussing came from a cross made at least a dozen years ago as (loddigesii ‘Shorty’ x walkeriana ‘The Chairman’). It was labeled as Cattleya Heathii and here is a picture of a currently open flower.

IMG_2166.jpeg
Two different issues plague the naming of this plant and I hope someone else in our Cattleya club is obsessive about nomenclature! I want to ignore the first problem which is the controversy about whether walkeriana ‘The Chairman’ is pure walkeriana. For this discussion let’s assume it is walkeriana.

The second issue concerns loddigesii and harrisoniana, which are currently accepted as separate species by Kew, but were confused for many years and the current AOS awarded harrisoniana list shows many plants with an asterisk that leads to a statement saying in essence, no one can currently tell whether this is pure harrisoniana or has some mixture with loddigesii.

Currently in RHS, (harrisoniana x walkeriana) is Heathii 1 but (loddigesii x walkeriana) is x dolosa, the name originally given to the supposed natural hybrid of loddigesii and walkeriana. There are currently 18 AOS awards for Cattleya x dolosa and I don’t think all of them were selfing or sib crosses of verified natural hybrids, so, artificial (loddigesii x walkeriana) crosses must also get labeled x dolosa.

I think I should change the label on my plant to Cattleya x dolosa.
 

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