Paph. lowii -Horizontal Form-

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Oh, well that does it. I thought maybe we had plants form the same group but mine bloom 6 months BEFORE the regular Paph. lowii. :evil:

That is funny! :rollhappy:You must have an early Bloomer!, while mine is a late Bloomer...

Robert
 
Oh, well that does it. I thought maybe we had plants form the same group but mine bloom 6 months BEFORE the regular Paph. lowii. :evil:
:D 6 months before the regular & 6 months after the regular is exactly at the same month, cause there are only 12 months in a year.
 
Robert,

Thanks for the good post. I agree with most your comments however I will add that from my experience, separate geographic locations generally contain plants with very few variations between them. I suspect selfings of your subject will produce a great many flowers with very similar, horizontal petals. You can see another example in my paph book, of the same flower type, produced from a collected plant. If you can get good habitat data for your plant it should answer that same question about my printed photo.

Unfortunately, I'm very suspicious of the flowers in the photo shown by Fabrice. It seems very likely that two different "types" of P. lowii were crossed to produce those two different flowers. ...... and thereby, continuing the chaos.

This issue of "sib-selfing of similar types" really needs some attention, don't you think?
 
Robert,

Thanks for the good post. I agree with most your comments however I will add that from my experience, separate geographic locations generally contain plants with very few variations between them. I suspect selfings of your subject will produce a great many flowers with very similar, horizontal petals. You can see another example in my paph book, of the same flower type, produced from a collected plant. If you can get good habitat data for your plant it should answer that same question about my printed photo.

Unfortunately, I'm very suspicious of the flowers in the photo shown by Fabrice. It seems very likely that two different "types" of P. lowii were crossed to produce those two different flowers. ...... and thereby, continuing the chaos.

This issue of "sib-selfing of similar types" really needs some attention, don't you think?

Thanks for your input Lance.

Now going to the issue of crossing similar types, I will start a new thread, as it does not have much to do with the lowii Horizontal. Be sure to read it!

Robert
 
Robert,

Thanks for the good post. I agree with most your comments however I will add that from my experience, separate geographic locations generally contain plants with very few variations between them. I suspect selfings of your subject will produce a great many flowers with very similar, horizontal petals. You can see another example in my paph book, of the same flower type, produced from a collected plant.

Lance. How local (or widespread) are the various forms of lowii you've seen?

It seems like there are multiple forms on Borneo, but are smaller islands dominated by a single form?
 
It's impossible to know just how widespread a habitat range certain types of species occupy. What you do is, examine specimens from as many locations as is possible, then compare the results. Who can do this?

I've always been suspicious of Cribb's 'area maps' because I know he's never been there to cover the entire region, nor has Kew's collectors. What he's done is to show the outer range of where a species has been located, and then guess at the rest. His maps of P. lowii (and P. bullenianum, etc.) each cover a huge area, and they fail to allow for "discrepencies" within locally isolated "hotspots." As we make more investigations we then find these spots which at times, harbor distinctly different types, usually derived from ancestral heritage, and we name them as new species. P. richardianum and P. lynniae are two fine examples.

Cribb's (and others) refusal to accept P. celebesense as distinct from the type P. bullenianum is a case in point. I think P, celebesense can be distinguished by most all orchidists, from P. bullenianum, as can others in this same complex. The question then becomes, ... do we split or do we lump?

Herr Bundt, on Sulawesi, once told me there are two forms of P. mastersianum, one from Ambon, the other from Ceram. Well, I've only seen the one we know, and now, for the past 8-9 years, Muslims are actively killing too many Christians over there to take the chance to find out for ourself.

P. virens is easily distinguished from P. javanicaum The ranges are far apart and can be separated geographically, as well as can their individual habitats.

I could go on and on. Who can answer your question? I don't think we will ever know, particularly since the CITES debacle. Unfortunately!
 
I have to side with you Lance on this topic of lumpers vs. splitters. I really take issue with breeders that would cross closely related species for "hybrid vigor" just to make a buck. In the end, all you have is "pot plant" setting in a supermarket, neglected then trashed. If left alone the species over time, would split again and again, and we would have more species. But no, man has to cross back these naturally accuring splits and what do we get? Mud. I like to look at it as a rainbow. If the species where to colors of the rainbow what would you get if you mixed them all up? More mud.
I don't know how you viewed Dr. Jack Fowlie but he was my hero early on. I couldn't wait to get my next issue of OD and to read his adventures. I think I learned allot on how to grow Paphs from his articles. He was a go getter. After he stepped down as editor I stopped getting the OD.
I also like your idea of adding "col" to the tags. I'm going to do just that of the ones I know for sure are collected plants.
 
Careful Rick, ......... I said tags should be made only at collection time.

But I think you would be able to make that call.
 
I have to side with you Lance on this topic of lumpers vs. splitters. I really take issue with breeders that would cross closely related species for "hybrid vigor" just to make a buck. In the end, all you have is "pot plant" setting in a supermarket, neglected then trashed. If left alone the species over time, would split again and again, and we would have more species. But no, man has to cross back these naturally accuring splits and what do we get? Mud. I like to look at it as a rainbow. If the species where to colors of the rainbow what would you get if you mixed them all up? More mud.
I don't know how you viewed Dr. Jack Fowlie but he was my hero early on. I couldn't wait to get my next issue of OD and to read his adventures. I think I learned allot on how to grow Paphs from his articles. He was a go getter. After he stepped down as editor I stopped getting the OD.
I also like your idea of adding "col" to the tags. I'm going to do just that of the ones I know for sure are collected plants.

Hey Rick, I hope you don't see me as one of those breeders who creates Mud just to make a buck ;). I personally have 2 goals when I am propagating species. I totally agree with you that you should keep some populations pure, so I just do sib crosses within a population (if they are all the same variety, or same form). Even if I just have one specimen of a species, or a variety, I will always self it, just to keep it going. These plants will be the ones that keep the variety name, or forma name. But at the same time I will usually outcross plants to a different variety or species, just to make stronger plants. I will however NEVER cross any of these back to the pure line and mix them together, as soon as I cross 2 different varieties together they loose the "variety" status. You may ask why do I do this?

1) if they are 2 different varieties of the same species, when you cross 2 different varieties, you still have the same species. But you have created a much stronger plant, that more hobby growers will be able to grow. You say it will be Mud, but I personally think you have created genetic diversity, and you can select for desirable traits.

2) what happens if you only have one specimen of a very rare species or a variety. Say you try to self it, but it won't take, or the plant dies. If you sib it with something else, at least you pass the genes of that plant on to the next generation. True, it will not look identical to the original plant, but I think that is better than totally loosing everything.

Robert
 

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