Paph micranthum from Kwong See

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Leo Schordje

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This is a Paph micranthum, a plant I bought from Ray Rands some 15 or so years ago. It allegedly came from KwangSee (Cantonese to english) the province is also known as Guang Xi in pinying. It took many years to get the plant established, this is only the 3rd time it has bloomed since I got it. The natural spread is 7.5 cm horizontal and 10.0 cm vertical. The frosted look toward the petal edges is a nice shading to white. Very lovely in person.

micranthum238-08web.jpg


Except for the asymetrical color pattern in the dorsal I would say this is just about award quality. Unfortunately I was feeling under the weather and did not get it to AOS judging Saturday. Oh well, when it blooms again, in about 5 years I can try to show it then.
 
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I'm so jealous! I have trouble growing this one. I have much better luck with its hybrids. I like the color in the dorsal, I think it's cool.
 
This is a Paph micranthum, a plant I bought from Ray Rands some 15 or so years ago. It allegedly came from Kwong See (Cantonese to english) or Guang Xi in pinying. It took many years to get the plant established, this is only the 3rd time it has bloomed since I got it. The natural spread is 7.5 cm horizontal and 10.0 cm vertical. The frosted look toward the petal edges is a nice shading to white. Very lovely in person.

Except for the asymetrical color pattern in the dorsal I would say this is just about award quality. Unfortunately I was feeling under the weather and did not get it to AOS judging Saturday. Oh well, when it blooms again, in about 5 years I can try to show it then.

Very nice one... Micranthum Kwangsee/Kwong See is my favorite form of micranthum. That's funny that yours flowers now, because mine are blooming now as well.

I have many plants of micranthum kwangsee that I selected over the years. (first picture is one selected one, second is another one that is promising, but got a mice problem, plus the bloom is fading, hence the dorsal...), and I wanted to stat a thread about that variety. It is not frequently what is sold as eburneum, the micranthum eburneum sold at present time for most of them are the pale to white-pouched micranthum from North Viet Nam, and the shape can be horrible. The flower size is smaller too.

I have yet to see a really bad micranthum Kwong See ( or kwangsee, as the original exporter wrote long time ago). They come 70km south of Nanning, GuangXi province, and, no matter the plant size and shape, the flower quality is always in the medium-high to very high quality. 1 man has the complete monopoly since it has been discovered, and is the only one able to get plants of this type. He hide most of his stock, and apparently he collected a lot of plants, and divide them over the years. ( the micranthum kwangsee from the Taiwan show comes from him as well...).

They do not grow like the normal micranthum. From what I have found:

- the roots of the wild plants are always completely covered with a red sticky clay, no roots or leafmould or whatever. Normal micranthum usually have a more organic fibrous soil on and around the roots. The root system of those plants remind me of collected paph concolor

- when imported recently they are prone to leaf dieback vey easily, and to a dry yellow-brown rot.

- They grow very fast for me with warm summer temperatures and a mix that is kept drier. The leaves are skinnier than a normal micranthum as well. However, when they grow well, the normal micranthum do not grow that much and that well. The growth is periodic. They have right now a massive spurt of growth, after a very cold winter.

Do you have a picture of the leaves of yours by the way ?



 
Another beautiful micranthum kwangsee, belonging to Lilo/Malipoense



I was the previous owner, and she got a wonderful bloom :D

That plant leafspan if I remember correctly was 8 cm total..
 
One more thing for this variety, they like to be kept quite dry and cold when the spathe forms in winter time until they bloom, that's the way to have much "rounder" flowers as well.. Keeping them on the dry side ( like for normal micranthum) prevents bud blast.
 
Another beautiful micranthum kwangsee, belonging to Lilo/Malipoense



I was the previous owner, and she got a wonderful bloom :D

That plant leafspan if I remember correctly was 8 cm total..

Stunning.
Same can be said about the other 2 flowers.
 
Paph micranthum from KwangSee

Hi Sanderianum - thank you for the info and beautiful pictures.
1.) First My initial post I mispelled the Wade-Giles version of the name of the province that in pinying is called GuangXI, the plant tags do say KwangSee. I tend to post from work, rather than from home where it is easy to check.
2.) Your observation are wonderful and do match the way my plants grow.
They were VERY slow to establish, and I did encounter that dry yellow-brown leaf die back. It took a couple years to get rid of that. Have not seen it in quite a while now. The roots were clean when Ray Rands sent them, so I did not see the red clay. The KwangSee do seem to grow in spurts, often when the other more common varieties are resting. I don't dry mine in winter, and I had the flower bud blast on the better one of my KwangSee's, so I will try drying them out more next winter.
3.) The leaves are dark compared to the vietnamense version. The tesselations are small silver dots, rather than the more common larger checked pattern. The background color of the leaf is very dark green, the look can appear almost black under low light. My flash made the leaf look greener than it does in life.
micranthum238-08foliage.jpg


4.) I also have seen what I suspect are the Vietnamense race with white pouches, and they are definitely a different race of micranthum. The pouches tend to 'hang' very low, and they are a smaller flower. The leaves are bright green with heavy silver tesselation, giving a very bright effect, nothing like the dark almost black green of the true KwangSee race of micranthum.
This is a picture of one,
micranth330e.gif


5.) A final question; What do you know wbout the race of micranthum called Kwei Chow? or is it Kwie Chow? I suspect it is a province name in the Wade-Giles transliteration system, but what is unique about micranthum from Kwei Chow?

Thanks in advance
Leo
 
micranthum is not my favorite species but those on this topic (Leo Schordje and sanderianum) are beautiful!
 
Not sure if it helps or has any relevance to your question, Leo, but Guangxi province (or region) is also called "Gui". so "Gui Zhou" (or Kwai Chou, in your message) means province of Gui, which is Guangxi.
 
Not sure if it helps or has any relevance to your question, Leo, but Guangxi province (or region) is also called "Gui". so "Gui Zhou" (or Kwai Chou, in your message) means province of Gui, which is Guangxi.

Thank you, that makes some sense. So KwaiChou or Gui Zhou would be a region in GuangXi? Or is it a neighboring province of similar size as GuangXi?

The reason I asked is my micranthum from Ray Rands that was listed as from Kwai Chou (Gui Zhou) has the largest flowers of any of my micranthums, good deep color and typical medium colored foliage. Ray Rand's ad said it was one of the few that were found occasionally growing epiphytically. - I think this might be apocryphal at best. At any rate, it is different than the 'run of the mill' Paph micranthums that I have.

Ah, those were the good old days, when every month Rands would have a new ad from new stuff from all over the world, long long time ago.
 
Kwai, or Gui, is the "abbreviation" for Guangxi province. So both Kwai Chou and Guong Xi both refer to the same province. :)
 
Like the refrigerator, you open the door, and the light goes on.

So both types are from GuangXi, one is a unique white pouch plant, and from a different part of the same province comes a really nice deep pink pouched plant. One of these days I'll post a picture of the micranthum I have that is alleged to come from Yunan. All are subtle variations on a lovely theme.
 
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