Counterfeit primulinum???

[Duck Slipper]

How do you know if it is counterfeit?

 

[Happypaphy7]

hmmm I'm curious but no one can answer it seems??
Maybe fakes have been around too long that we are used to them or they (the species and Pinocchio) look so much alike that it is very hard to tell them apart. Or maybe both?
Where did you get the plant from?

 

[big923cattleya]

Counterfeit? Seems like an odd word to use as it relates to plants.
When it comes to hybrids I can see where they might be mislabeled but not counterfeit.
When it comes to species I consider geographic range. To me, the wider the geographical range, the more variations might be found within the species.
If you could suddenly put 1000 primulinums in front of me, I suspect I would see variations between individual plants. That seems natural.
They are likely to be way closer in appearance if they were mericlones but I’ll bet I would see a few variations there as well. Not many but a few.

 

[big923cattleya]

I just took a look in the records and yours may be a Paph. primulinum ‘Alba’ cross. Most Pinocchio’s have a pink pouch but a remake using the Alba primulinum does seem to produce blooms that look like your plant.
Vegetatively they look so much a like. Maybe that is how you ended up with the less intensely colored primulinum.

 

[Duck Slipper]

In a previous thread, last week, it was stated that a real primulinum had not been collected in 40 years. The same thread also mentioned a 4n alba version that was spread worldwide. There is other posts relating to the same subject…perhaps “counterfeit” is the incorrect word to use, but a hybrid to me is counterfeit or fake if it is being sold as a specie.

 

[Duck Slipper]

Counterfeit? Seems like an odd word to use as it relates to plants.
When it comes to hybrids I can see where they might be mislabeled but not counterfeit.
When it comes to species I consider geographic range. To me, the wider the geographical range, the more variations might be found within the species.
If you could suddenly put 1000 primulinums in front of me, I suspect I would see variations between individual plants. That seems natural.
They are likely to be way closer in appearance if they were mericlones but I’ll bet I would see a few variations there as well. Not many but a few.

Accidentally mislabeled is an accident!
Mislabeled as a specie and truly a hybrid…isn’t that misleading, fake, counterfeit??

 

[Happypaphy7]

A fraudulent imitation of something else is the definition and I understood (I'm sure most other also) exactly the way you intended.
If someone knowingly passed the hybrid as a species, that's a deceit and the product, plant, would then be a counterfeit.

 

[Happypaphy7]

No further answers but I’m reviving this rather than starting my own.
Here’s mine that just opened.
The flower is small at barely 2.5 inch wide but fragrant. Is primulinum the only fragrant species in Cochlopetalum group? I have smelled nothing from chamberlainianum and liemianum, but never got a chance to sniff on other three species.
The plant is also small at 8in wide.
On my screen, the photo appears yellower than green. In person, it is more green than yellow if that makes any sense.

 

[Tony]

I don't know about other species but primulinum hybrids can inherit the fragrance, I've bloomed fragrant Pinocchio.

 

[big923cattleya]

The few primulinum’s I have grown, viewed or judged have been compact plants. I do not think that they get very big at all. I can’t remember measurements but those are easy to obtain either from books or on line postings.
I can’t recall ever detecting and fragrance.
I have had a couple of six growth plants that fit comfortably in a 4-5” pot.

 

[tenman]

I just took a look in the records and yours may be a Paph. primulinum ‘Alba’ cross. Most Pinocchio’s have a pink pouch but a remake using the Alba primulinum does seem to produce blooms that look like your plant.
Vegetatively they look so much a like. Maybe that is how you ended up with the less intensely colored primulinum.

There is no primulinum alba. The yellow form IS primulinum, the type. The one with the purple pouch is v.purpurascens

 

[Roth]

The few primulinum’s I have grown, viewed or judged have been compact plants. I do not think that they get very big at all. I can’t remember measurements but those are easy to obtain either from books or on line postings.
I can’t recall ever detecting and fragrance.
I have had a couple of six growth plants that fit comfortably in a 4-5” pot.

That's the problem, the real primulinum has very specific narrow leaves, and to trust the books is very impossible for quite a lot of species. On line postings, well the Pinnochio were sold as primulinum 4n worldwide from the early 90's, and some very reputable nurseries were hoarding at Van der Weijden nursery, in Kudelstaart, the Pinnochio Geel, putting their primulinum tags in these. I saw it done first hand, in the early 90s and after.

There are even Indonesian groups right now that are offering Pinnochio, Avalon Mist or whatever as 'real' primulinum now...

Indeed primulinum hybrids do inherit the fragrance. However, a yellow cochlo without any fragrance is an hybrid for sure. If fragrant, then it still can be an hybrid or genuine.

The real primulinum are tiny plants, tiny flowers, that are not exactly showy, more 'cute'. That's why, like charlesworthii and spicerianum more recently, they disappear from cultivation to the benefit of those mislabeled hybrids...

Here is a true, real primulinum

http://www.kew.org/herbcatimg/38396...*MTY4NjkyOTc3NC4xLjEuMTY4NjkyOTgwMy4wLjAuMA..

 

[Happypaphy7]

Thanks but the dry pressed flower like that does not really help identify for obvious reasons.
By the way, that herbaceous sample is not small at all compared to other species in the group. Just saying.
Also, if true primulinum was never been in cultivation since 1990s, then, how did anyone make its primary hybrid of Pinocchio?
and Avalon Mist which Pinocchio back cross onto primulinum?
They have been made again and again as far as I know, so this begs for more questions regarding the parent plants.
It gets quite confusing and annoying now.

 

[Roth]

http://www.kew.org/herbcatimg/38396...*MTY4NjkyOTc3NC4xLjEuMTY4NjkyOTgwMy4wLjAuMA..

Thanks but the dry pressed flower like that does not really help identify for obvious reasons.
By the way, that herbaceous sample is not small at all compared to other species in the group. Just saying.
Also, if true primulinum was never been in cultivation since 1990s, then, how did anyone make its primary hybrid of Pinocchio?
and Avalon Mist which Pinocchio back cross onto primulinum?
They have been made again and again as far as I know, so this begs for more questions regarding the parent plants.
It gets quite confusing and annoying now.

They were made mostly by Floricultura back then, and were Fx generation, like Lippewunder. The original Pinnochio were all pink, then the F1 of it had some yellows. They colchicine treated some and selected again to get bigger flowers, incorporated what was known too as chamberlainianum latifollium, etc....

 

[DirGo]

I had a real primulinum purchased in 2006 from a (now closed) nursery that also had it like 'forever' in their own collection but never could flower it and were willing to sell it. It perfectly resembled the plants I remembered from the early years when they were first wild collected. It proved indeed a real pain to grow and flower. I hardly made any progress, it always remained very small, both in leave and flower size and it was flowering very infrequently.

Later on I purchased a "super" one, that clearly resembled in flower shape BUT grew monster size with improved leaves, improved flowering frequency. When you saw them side by side, the differences in plants are pretty obvious, but on individual pictures, without a measuring unit, they are hard to compare.

Finally I separated from the real one and kept the "super" one. It was only years later I understood my mistake.

There was one year they were both in flower and I made a side by side comparing (see the pdf attached) . With my current knowledge I would call "small" the real one and "large" the Pinocchio on steroids one.

But there is also a silver lining here: the pleasure I get from my "fake" primulinum is 100 times more than what I ever gotten from the "real" one I once had.

 

[Duck Slipper]

I could not detect any fragrance with mine...but I do not have a good sniffer.

 

[Happypaphy7]

Fragrance may not be a very reliable indicator.
Things like delenatii and malipoense, not all the plants are fragrant and the ones that are fragrant can vary greatly in how fragrant they are.
I assume it is the same with this species?

 

[ban]

in situ near lake Toba Sumatra. I cannot recall there any fragrant. All plants are very much by nature small 15-18cm compared to the F.purpurascen.

 

[Happypaphy7]

I think I can already hear Roth coming in saying no, they planted hybrids in the wild.

 

[Roth]

in situ near lake Toba Sumatra. I cannot recall there any fragrant. All plants are very much by nature small 15-18cm compared to the F.purpurascen.

Thanks for the photo!

Definitenly looks like the correct ones, tiny plants, not very vigorous. The original ones came from the west of Medan, so it is not so far as well. If you go back, they are fragrant for sure, and unlike delenatii it is quite constant over all the plants.

But that's not what we see in the trade today unfortunately....