Paph lowii var album

[Gilda]

It is paler than pictured. I find the dots across the top of the petals interesting.

 

[GuRu]

Gilda, that's a very beautiful flower and I'm green with envy to see this because I had one seedling, many years ago.....but sadly the culture failed.
On the other hand, as far as I know, these spots mentioned of you prevent it to be a true album. So it's correct name should be P. lowii f. aureum.

 

[Linus_Cello]

Cool. Where’d you get this from?

 

[Camellkc]

Nice form. But unluckily that it is not a pure album with black dots in the petals.

 

[Gilda]

Gilda, that's a very beautiful flower and I'm green with envy to see this because I had one seedling, many years ago.....but sadly the culture failed.
On the other hand, as far as I know, these spots mentioned of you prevent it to be a true album. So it's correct name should be P. lowii f. aureum.

Thank you for the info

 

[Gilda]

Cool. Where’d you get this from?

Looking Glass Orchids, 2 years ago as a BS seedling

 

[Gilda]

Nice form. But unluckily that it is not a pure album with black dots in the petals.

I like the dots ...so for me it's not unlucky.

 

[NYEric]

Nice, thanks for sharing.

 

[SlipperKing]

Great presentation for the aureum form. I've seen a few with very skinny dorsals.
Mine bloomed out very green and white with the same maroon dots on the petals near the stami. Not at all aureum, so what to call that? Viridis?

 

[Ozpaph]

That's a beauty!

 

[blondie]

Congrats it's stunning!!! I only have a seedling it's got many years to go yet lol

 

[Gilda]

Great presentation for the aureum form. I've seen a few with very skinny dorsals.
Mine bloomed out very green and white with the same maroon dots on the petals near the stami. Not at all aureum, so what to call that? Viridis?

Do you have a pic Rick ? interesting how these can be so different.

 

[SlipperKing]

Here Gilda..

 

[Gilda]

Here Gilda..

Great flower count ! I see the dots , and it is limey green. Thanks for sharing the pic.

 

[DrLeslieEe]

Great pics and blooming! These 'album' lowiis are my favorite multiflorals.

These flowers are coined 'albescent' as they are part of a two step breeding program to create stronger albino plants in the next generation. They are from an albino cross with half albino.

I bought one from Japan Tokyo Dome Show and it was sulphur yellow with wide 'spoon paddle' petals, but had the same brown spots at the base of the petals. By selfing or sibbing these, pure albinos will appear in the next generation without these brown spots.

 

[musa]

Amazing colour!

 

[Ozpaph]

that's a cracker!

 

[Guldal]

Botanically speaking, the albinistic colour form of lowii was validly published by Cribb as 'aureum' (golden), which makes a lot of sense seeing the superb flower in DrLeslieEe's post... All flowers in the photos, following Cribb's description, by the way, had little, dark spots on the upper, central part of the petals.

I've seen photos of plants with more greenish coloured flowers of lowii (as f.ex. Slipperking's splendid one in this thread), but as no one legitimatelly has published fma. virescens, even these plants would at the moment be designated as fma. aureum. You could, though, put a (Hort.) behind the name, signifying that the name is a horticultural one, and not a botanically legit one - in casu P. lowii fma. virescens.

Further: Botanists tend these days not to ascribe varietal status to plants that morphologically (structurally) do not differ from the typical form, but only have a different colouring. These are instead treated as colour forms (abbr. fma), which, I think, makes a lot of sense.

To call any of the albinistic forms of flowers of lowii 'album' is botanically nonsense - album means (pure) white (as f.ex. seen in bellatulum fma. album or niveum ditto), see f.ex. Gruß or Braem for a thorough discussion of this matter.
This doesn't render clonal epithets as 'Albino Beauty' illegit, though - the correct designation for that clone would thus be: Paphiopedilum lowii fma. aureum 'Albino Beauty'.

PS. Some botanists haven't made life easier for the rest of us by designating plants as album, that clearly aren't, but as Braem and his co- authors point out: "The rules of taxonomy ... lack proper safety mechanisms against the misuse of the designation "alba/album/albus". A designation of a species or an intraspecific taxon, as long as it is part of a validly and effectively published concept, is to be followed, no matter how erroneous or ludicrous the designation may be". The authors mention P. haynaldianum fma. album, a plant with mainly green flowers, as an example of this (Braem et al.: "The Genus Paphiopedilum. 2nd Edition", p. 44. Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh, 2016).

Kind regards,
Jens

 

[Guldal]

Arrrgh: with the horticultural name I forgot the important part:

You could, though, put a (Hort.) behind the name, signifying that the name is a horticultural one, and not a botanically legit one - in casu P. lowii fma. virescens

Recte: Paphiopedilum lowii fma. virescens (Hort.).

The same would apply to DrLeslieEe's use of albescens: P. lowii fma. albescens (Hort.).

Although, this last example would leave us with the conundrum: why choose a new designation for a plant, that is clearly a misnomer ('albescens' = whitish, becoming white), compared with the validly published, botanical name ('aureum' = golden yellow)?

 

[Gilda]

Thank you Jens , a great explanation. I love the form on mine, especially the dorsal and wide "spoons ". I hope to see the next generation without the spots, till then I just want to keep mine happy and growing.