Does anyone believe that a true Phragmipaphium has been made?

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kentuckiense

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On his excellent site, Rob Z. has a few photos for two crosses: http://robzuiderwijk.nl/phragmipaphium/hybrids/hybrids_phrphm.asp

To me, the Phrag. besseae x Paph. micranthum just looks like a cochlo hybrid. Just look at the buds and the staminode. It just SCREAMS cochlo. Also, Hane's Magic is not convincing in the least. I'm assuming we're looking at deliberate misleadings or flasking errors.
 
If a Phragmipaphium exists then we may need to expect the second coming. As mention, there have been a few examples displayed. One notable one was introduced by John Haynes many years ago, noted in Slipperorchid forum 27/10/05 called Haynes Magic = Phrag Albopurpureum x Paph stonei. A very poor pic is in the book by Catherine Cash. Its a huge plant but looks very much like a P.stonei. Never seen in public either !!
The rest shown & mentioned on other websites, to me, are pure Paphs.
Phrag kovachii may change things, the proof will be in the pudding. I suppose one can live in hope. ( good name for a town )
 
smartie2000 said:
I would agree with you...I've seen those photos before and doubted them. Have they looked at their chromosomes?
I know that Hanes Magic was looked at chromosomewise and the cells only showed 26 chromosomes of the Paph pod parent
 
Please visit Dr Tanaka's site:
http://www.orchid.or.jp/orchid/people/tanaka/Special/enbxm.html

Photos of besseae x malipoense. There is a remarkable similarity to the independantly propagated (besseae x micranthum) mentioned above. I have personally seen (besseae x delenatii) .

I am reluctant to say these are not really Phragmipaphiums. True that in photos the Paph traits seem to dominate. But the plants didn't appear to be completely normal Paph plants in person. There needs to be more study. The plants I've seen did not grow normally. AND, keep in mind. Just because you have never seen one before, don't be so quick to say impossible or can't be done. Plants in general are much more tolerant of abberant chromosome configurations than mammals. Some really screwed up, miss match genetic configurations can and do survive.

I have not owned any of the Phragmipahiums I have seen, so I can not say with certainty exactly what it was I was looking at and can not "go back" and get more info for you. But I do believe these hybrids were made, and "something" grew and bloomed. What the genetic make up was of the progeny is I can not say, but it "wern't normal" when I saw it.
Leo
 
Wouldn't it be more likely to work (in theory at least) if both parents were 4n?

Then the resulting plant would have a full genetic complement from each parent.
I vaguely remember from college biology that crossing the 4n plants of different species was easier to do. Anyone have any info on that?
 
ohio-guy said:
Wouldn't it be more likely to work (in theory at least) if both parents were 4n?

Then the resulting plant would have a full genetic complement from each parent.

I thought that the problem with 4n x 4n hybrids is aneuploidy prevalence, and susbequent deformation, due to the different chromosome counts. I may be making that up though.
 
In theory, it should be possible to do a cross between Phrags and Paphs.

The way to verify whether the progeny is truly a mix of these two genera is not by chromosome counts because Paph chromosomes would likely look just like Phrag chromosomes.

You would need to get DNA sequences that identify a given species, whether Paph or Phrag. So for a besseae x malipoense cross, you would first need to have some DNA sequences that are fingerprints for besseae as a species, and fingerprints for malipoense as a species.

The way to think of DNA is like a giant chain of letters billions of letters long. The letters are only A, C, G, T (the nucleotide components of DNA).

Here's a very short example. Imagine that the following sequence is a fragment of DNA from Phrag. besseae:

...ACTTCGACTTGCTACGTTCGACATTGCAGCGTCCAGTGCCTGCGTTCAGT...

and this sequence is a fragment of DNA from Paph. malipoense:

...TTCGTCTTTACGTCTTTCGAATCTAACTGTTGTTTCCAACACTCGTCTTC...

(Every tenth character is in bold)

What you'd be looking for is some set of short sequences that uniquely identify a given species. For example, for besseae, you might have on the above example a short segment between position 10 and 20 that is ONLY found in besseae. (i.e., ACGTCTTTCGA)

Similarly, for malipoense, your research may determine that there is a short segment that is unique between position 35 and 45. (i.e., TCCAACACTCG)

Now, if you were to examine the plants from a putative besseae x malipoense cross, you would look for the presence of BOTH of the unique identifying sequences from the parent species.

If you find them both present, then you'll have demonstrated that the plant is indeed the result of a cross between besseae and malipoense (barring experimental error, of course).

In real life, it's not quite *this* simple, but this is the idea in general...

If you're interested in matters of orchid genetics, please check out my posts at www.paphinessorchids.com.

DY Hung, Ph.D.
 
The most logical explanation for "Phragmipaphiums" I have seen goes back to the original explanation of Hanes Magic, written maybe 20 years ago (I think in the AOS Bulletin...not sure at this point...) Apparently, the "hybrid" is a paph, that managed to somehow incorporate a few phrag genes..(plasmids, maybe? there seem to be more and more evidence of extra-chromosomal genes that float around in an organisms genome). Make the most sense to me, even after seeing the other "phragmipaphium" pictures...Take care, Eric
 
I can buy it if the explanation was just that apomixis was occuring... But then you'd just get a clone of the mother plant. Who knows.
 
I always thought that perhaps Phragmipaphium Hanes Magic was a true Phragmipahium, but now that I looked at the pictures, to me it looks like Paph. Frank Booth (= stonei x parishii); especially if you look at the staminode; to me it screams parishii hybrid.

Here is a picture of Paph. Frank Booth (from slipperorchids.info):

http://www.slipperorchids.info/paphprimaries/PaphFrankBooth1.jpg

and here of Phragmipaphium Hanes Magic (from Phragweb) :

http://robzuiderwijk.nl/phragmipaph...phm.asp?photo_id=744&phrphm_name=Hanes'+Magic

what do you guys think?

I have tried many times to cross Phrag's with Paph's but have never been succesfull. Would it not be great if you could cross Paph. sanderianum with Phrag. caudatum or Phrag. popowii?, or Phrag. kovachii with Paph. micranthum or Paph. vietnamense?

Robert
 
I have thougt about the crossing of Paph. sanderianum and Phrag. popowii to! And maybe also Paph. sanderianum x Phrag. kovachii? I think crossing these two generas would make a great improvement in colour and shape on both generas hybrids.
 

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