newly discovered Paphiopedilum erythroanthum

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Just received this in an email. What vivid beauty. I see P. henryanum and P. helenae similarities but that particular blood-red coloration is certainly unique. Here’s to seed-grown specimens within a few years
 

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It looks like a colour form of hermanii

Yes, exactly my thought. P. hermannii is very variable in the extent of green edging to the dorsal and petals. As the paper is behind a paywall I don't know how the authors have justified it's separation from hermannii as a separate species. Maybe someone who has access to the paper can tell us ?
 
Thanks for your information BrucherT. Recently there was an article in the German ORCHIDEENJOURNAL concerning this newly described species.
The quintessence is, that taxonomists discuss its status as a new species controversially. Some see in it just a colour form of P. henryanum and support this testimony by DNA analysis and morphological features. I'm no expert and therefore I can't assess these arguments I just judge it by a beauty.
Have a look at http://www.orchideen-journal.de/pdf/paphiopedilum.pdf
 
Thank you GuRu for the link! I tend to agree with this article: another very nice colour-form of henryanum.
 
Thanks for your information BrucherT. Recently there was an article in the German ORCHIDEENJOURNAL concerning this newly described species.
The quintessence is, that taxonomists discuss its status as a new species controversially. Some see in it just a colour form of P. henryanum and support this testimony by DNA analysis and morphological features. I'm no expert and therefore I can't assess these arguments I just judge it by a beauty.
Have a look at http://www.orchideen-journal.de/pdf/paphiopedilum.pdf
Very cool photographic juxtaposition, though I can’t read German. But visually I’m seeing significant differences in the shape of henryanum, which I also grow, and I’ve never seen any blood-red in a henryanum. But that ventral sepal that’s so vivid in henryanum isn’t
Thanks for your information BrucherT. Recently there was an article in the German ORCHIDEENJOURNAL concerning this newly described species.
The quintessence is, that taxonomists discuss its status as a new species controversially. Some see in it just a colour form of P. henryanum and support this testimony by DNA analysis and morphological features. I'm no expert and therefore I can't assess these arguments I just judge it by a beauty.
Have a look at http://www.orchideen-journal.de/pdf/paphiopedilum.pdf
]
Very cool photographic juxtaposition, though I can’t read German. But visually I’m seeing significant differences in the shape of henryanum, which I also grow, and I’ve never seen any blood-red in a henryanum. But that ventral sepal that’s so vivid in henryanum isn’t even visible in the new species’ photo. I wish there were in situ photos or a map of range but I want it in the jungle more than I want it in my window.
 
First of all, thanks for sharing.
Second...Yunnan. No disrespect to our Chinese members but I think we can pretty much all agree that Yunnan is a collect point for plants, sort of like the Kew for the UK.
As DNA testing is becoming so common, I hope someone will establish a gene collection so Paphs can be tested.
 
For the non-german readers: Roland Schettler in the article in Guru's excellent link ends up concluding, that it makes best sense to consider this plant and flower a colour form of P. henryanum, namely P. henryanum fma. erythroanthum.
Underway in his discussion of the status of the plant he finds it, both from a morphological point of view and from a phylogenetic analysis, to be very closely related to the newly described P. notatisepalum. He doesn't rule out, though, the possibility of it having a hybridic background as a natural hybrid involving either of the species P. barbigerum, P. coccineum, P. notatisepalum and P. henryanum.

Thus speaks a true academic: leaving, so to speak, no bases untouched! ;)
 
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I have been interested in these 'new' species and I find it hard to say they are not related to henryanum. Case in point is the exact pouch on both the notisepalum and the erythroanthum and the similarity of the shape of the staminode. If the dried floweres were compared, they would match. I think that these two 'new' species are either variations of the henryanum complex or natural hybrid swarm that has developed and stabilized remotely in its own isolated population. Sometimes I think we are quick to try to name a species without a full study.
 
Sometimes I think we are quick to try to name a species without a full study.

The reason for that are probably manifold: the sheer joy of the discovery of something new; the honour and glory associated with discovering a new species; the time pressure related to the fact that, if certainly a new species, the first validly published name according to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclatura is the legit one (see f.ex. respectively Cribb and Braem for what almost amounts to feuds over the names of P. markianum vs tigrinum, P. callosum vs crossii, and last but not least P. supardii vs devogelii. Controversy over the latter species' name allegedly made the two gentlemen bitter enemies for life - read Eric Hansen's 'Orchid Fever' for an entertaining tale of this and many other matters pertaining to horticultural lust and lunacy); the need in the academic world for citations so crucial for funding and status - to mention, but a few examples!
 
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