Paph. glanduliferum?

[niveum]

Hi,

these photos show my friend´s plant.



As you know, Braem&Chiron in "Paphiopedilum" write about this species:

"this spec. is known only from the the type material and the description and illustration in Blume´s Rumphia. Although the description there is quite detailed it causes confusion because there are no plants available that quite answer to that description. Pfitzer recognised two species - Paph. glanduliferum and Paph. praestans - and differentiated between them by the morphology of the staminod shield. ..... Staminodal morphology is now considered one of the best characteristics. .... It was Garay (1995) who first reviewed the problem in more detail, and who came to the conclusion - mainly on the basis of staminode morphology - that Paph. glanduliferum is indeed different from Paph. praestans and may not have rediscovered since the type was collected by Zippel in New Guinea".

The description of Paph. glanduliferum, translated from the Blume original:
Gynostemium short, stamen or staminode projecting more dorsally and exteriorly with two anthers being more evident than in allied species. Staminode arched upward with depressions above, hairy, the front elongated into a keeled, glabrous beak; the fertile portion of the gynostemium with lateral edges turned upward and basally narrowed into a keel, apically enlarged into two curved, lateral, short petal- likelobes with sub- apical anthers toward the stigma.

Is it a Paph. glanduliferum, as described by Blume?

Peter

 

[Mocchaccino]

I'm always confused by glanduliferum and praestans as well. I hope someone could advise too!!

 

[SlipperKing]

I can't get the attachments to open but what I can tell it's straight praestans.

 

[tenman]

Pics are too small to tell anything.

 

[Rick]

I'm always confused by glanduliferum and praestans as well. I hope someone could advise too!!

That original description goes back to 1848. No photos, no stored material, no population study, no description of the within species variability within the species. Actually before Garay, Veitch and Stein (1889 and 1892) considered a plant named Cyp praestens by H.G. Rechenbach in 1886 to be the same thing as that plant Blume described in 1848. Other battles such as Pfitzer (1903) tried to separate the names again. When Garay looked at a very limited number of specimens in 1995 the staminodes where not identical to the 1848 drawing and listed the newer specimens as praestens. Cribb on the other hand in 1998 thought that the range of staminodal differences of recent collected material were well within the natural variation of both the ancient description of Cypripedium glanduliferum and praestens to justify call them all by their first described name (glanduliferum).

This really has nothing to do with biology/ecology but history. For all intents of purpose, they are two different names for the same plant.

If you know the source collection information that is way more important than what to call it. Not unlike the recent discussion on the myriad forms of philippinense.

 

[UweM]

always the same topic:

http://www.orchidspng.com/contrib_garay2.html

http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21357&highlight=glanduliferum

 

[Roth]

That original description goes back to 1848. No photos, no stored material, no population study, no description of the within species variability within the species. Actually before Garay, Veitch and Stein (1889 and 1892) considered a plant named Cyp praestens by H.G. Rechenbach in 1886 to be the same thing as that plant Blume described in 1848. Other battles such as Pfitzer (1903) tried to separate the names again. When Garay looked at a very limited number of specimens in 1995 the staminodes where not identical to the 1848 drawing and listed the newer specimens as praestens. Cribb on the other hand in 1998 thought that the range of staminodal differences of recent collected material were well within the natural variation of both the ancient description of Cypripedium glanduliferum and praestens to justify call them all by their first described name (glanduliferum).

This really has nothing to do with biology/ecology but history. For all intents of purpose, they are two different names for the same plant.

If you know the source collection information that is way more important than what to call it. Not unlike the recent discussion on the myriad forms of philippinense.

The four photos are a new type of praestans, with extremely hairy flower spikes and very strange leaves. They appeared in the trade as wilhelminiae about 6 months a year ago in quantities, before in small quantity only. I grow a few too, the plants and flower spikes look like a lowii or richardianum, and only when they open they are a form of praestans.

As for glanduliferum, there is a certain amount of dishonesty amongst many botanists, and here is why:

- There is a detailed drawing of the dissected flower here:
http://orchid.unibas.ch/phpMyHerbarium/307666/1////specimen.php

One of the characteristics that appear immediately too are the kind of vampire teeth going inside the pouch, not only the crazy staminodium... The staminodium for a variable species is nothing, bullenianum, appletonianum, insigne, barbigerum, all have widely variable staminodium within the SAME colony in the wild. But most botanists never went there, especially on a sizeable colony. For things like kolopakingii, even Alex reported here that the plant size, number of flowers, etc... varies tremendously. For henryanum, I have seen helenae sized plants up to esquirolei sized ones, on the same colony, with round, square, green dotted, etc... staminodium, same place.

- There is a painting here:
http://archive.org/stream/mobot31753002794375#page/195/mode/2up

That's the original Rumphia online, you move to the page ca. 106...

Alternately, you can download a very high quality scanned copy of the Rumphia volume here:
http://archive.org/details/mobot31753002794375

Leiden still has the herbarium specimen too apparently...

Oddly enough, the painting, description, and Rumphia are public domain, but no one dare to reproduce the painting, or translate accurately the latin description and comments... because most botanist that say it is a praestans would look foolish. Rather than that, they rely on a staminodium, and only that...

Few points:
-ALL the other orchids, as one can see, are painted very accurately, good color, shape, etc... why only cypripedium glanduliferum would be bogus ?
- The flower is clearly bicolor, it reminds me of a phrag Sedenii even ( that did not exist at that time).
- The ovary seems to be white and pink, not green. Again, white ovaries, we though they existed for no paphiopedilum species ( and the original sanderianum painting were deemed to be bogus, until wild plants appeared), then only for sanderianum, then we got gigantifolium with white ovaries...
- Cypripedium were an ugly curiosity at Blume time, no one would bother to make a 'fake' to earn money. Today would be another story.

One collector brought back recently plants that he said looked like a praestans with juicy soft leaves and white and pink flowers. We would be right on with those. They come indeed from one island that was not previously collected... Let's see when the plants will bloom. They are indeed strange ( and niveum photos posted here are again strange, hairy flower spikes... but not glanduliferum for sure).

Guido reply is the best so far, we don't know what glanduliferum, but there is no reason to try to lump it with live plants of today, or other known species. Glanduliferum did come well off the PNG coast to say the least. I did not study fully the thing, but apparently it says in the Rumphia as well that the painting has been done live, in New Guinea, during the Latour expedition... No mention of Zippel until years later indeed...

Dr. Garay studied as well the original herbarium specimen of the genuine glanduliferum, and found it to perfectly match the drawing, and the painting indeed. So it is just one species that has not been rediscovered yet, not a praestans.

 

[niveum]

one more trial to add the photos.
Peter

 

[Rick]

Guido reply is the best so far, we don't know what glanduliferum, but there is no reason to try to lump it with live plants of today, or other known species. Glanduliferum did come well off the PNG coast to say the least. I did not study fully the thing, but apparently it says in the Rumphia as well that the painting has been done live, in New Guinea, during the Latour expedition... No mention of Zippel until years later indeed...

Dr. Garay studied as well the original herbarium specimen of the genuine glanduliferum, and found it to perfectly match the drawing, and the painting indeed. So it is just one species that has not been rediscovered yet, not a praestans.

What also strikes me as interesting, is the "glanduliferum" plant, discovered by Latour or Zippel appears to be the only one on the face of the earth in 1838, and since then everyone keeps tripping over various "praestens" forms for the last 175 years criss-crossing PNG while looking for the long lost glanduliferum. This is almost like discovering a 4 leaf clover in a field of regular clover, and describing the aberrant mutant as the type representative for the entire species.

Not unlike the story of Paph "viniferum", except the mutant was found after recognizing it was in the middle of a field of calosum.

Does it get to be a species if it was only one plant?

 

[Roth]

What also strikes me as interesting, is the "glanduliferum" plant, discovered by Latour or Zippel appears to be the only one on the face of the earth in 1838, and since then everyone keeps tripping over various "praestens" forms for the last 175 years criss-crossing PNG while looking for the long lost glanduliferum. This is almost like discovering a 4 leaf clover in a field of regular clover, and describing the aberrant mutant as the type representative for the entire species.

Not unlike the story of Paph "viniferum", except the mutant was found after recognizing it was in the middle of a field of calosum.

Does it get to be a species if it was only one plant?

There are many islands off PNG, up to the Moluccas ( that indeed have some types of praestans). It is not impossible that one of those islands harbors, or did have a very big colony of genuine glanduliferum. Most of those islands, like even the giant island of Obi, etc... have been explored once every other decade, at the most.

Glanduliferum is really too different from praestans in the flower pattern, teeth in the pouch, to be an aberration...

Viniferum is a very different story. At that time, the traders traded boxes of callosum, appletonianum, one shipment was one colony completely wiped out. Sometimes, the colonies would be too small, 1000-2000 plants, and the importer would tell Sukhakhul or the others to hold the shipment until there are more, in the hot and humid Bangkok. As a result, many consignments died, which was not important, as the prices were really cheap. If only a handful of plants from one nearly dead shipment were alive, they would be put in the next shipment. Maybe there used to be some thousands viniferum in one box, that happened to have been put 'on hold', then the few survivors went to a callosum box, then only one plant grew to bloom in the Netherlands.

This is what happened to sukhakhuliii indeed, the first plants came as a single plant, another single one, in appletonianum boxes ( and were though to be wardii, the long lost species at that time), because they are more sensitive to rot than callosum. Then, one box was lucky enough some years later to arrive and leave immediately, and voila, some hundreds sukhakhulii in bloom....

In fact, I know too that some hundreds ooii have been collected in 1994, I visited one nursery with 'rothschildianum or kolopakingii' at that time, and they had a lot of leathery, yellowish, dying, plants with big dead flower spikes. They all died, and it took another consignment to get one in spike in the batch, then realize what they were.

Now, if the first place had all the ooii from the wild, killed them all except one lucky one, we would be in a situation similar to viniferum, only one survivor, maybe none. But it does not mean that it was not plentiful in the wild before. I have seen this happening many times.

 

[UweM]

You can find an opinion to glanduliferum from James Asher in Orchid Digest Juli/August 1981.

Here some paintings from his article:

If interest, send me a PM or mail - I will send a scan from this article

Uwe

 

[Ozpaph]

Though no expert, niveum's photos look a lot like the botanical illustrations posted and linked (and not like praestans).