gratixianum or affine?

[Chicago Chad]

This is a plant I purchased as Paph vejvarutianum. I had thought it was with how the plant looked prior to the flower opening. It is about half the size of my other line bred 'gratixianum' This one is much more waxy in texture, smaller in NS, shorter inflorescence height and the spotting is different on the base of the foliage and the flower bract. So.... crappy gratixianum, affine or a cluster of the whole messy complex?

I have read many of the arguments on the descriptions (leaf width, distribution, ect) and they seem to just go in circles, but I would like some feedback on what one would call it in their collection?

 

[Guldal]

P. gratrixianum is from what I've seen a highly variable species.

P. affine on the other hand seems to be a taxonomic enigma: described in 1906 by De Wildeman nobody ever since seems to have made head nor tail of it! (See Cribb, "The Genus Paphiopedilum" or Averyanov et. al., "Slipper Orchids of Vietnam" for a full discussion of the matter). The many attempts to revive the name seems not to have succesfully concurred with De Wildermans description...and thus might at the most be considered 'hortonomical' epithets...and even then doubtfull ones, indeed!

Your flower, though, looks lovely!

Ps. Vejvarutianum it definately isn't!

Kind regards, Jens

 

[tenman]

If the leaves are thin it is NOT gratrixianum, according to the original description. Eric published a piece on this about 8-10 years ago that showed the plants we had been growing and calling gratrixianum in collections did NOT match the original description and therefore were NOT gratrixianum; he speculated they might be affine. I posted the article (I think it was here) it may be searchable.

 

[quietaustralian]

Christenson must not have seen the original description of P. affine.
De Wildeman described a 'mottle leaved' plant with a villosum like flower.

This is the translation of De Wildeman's description provided by Guido Braem...
"Leaves 4 to 5, more or less lobed, up to 15 cm long and up to 3 cm wide, more or less dark green with white margins, striped and spotted with darker green, acute at the tip, 3-dented, distinctly keeled on the under side."