Paphiopedilum ID (Help needed)

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Just to throw another name in the ring and add to the confusion: Reichenbach described a variety of bullenianum with large eyespots as bullenianum var oculatum. He also described a spotless variety as var. anophtalmum. Hallier in his extensive article from 1897 considers his amabile close to, or identical with, bullenianum var. oculatum.
The article in Cutris botanical magazine on Paph robinsonii, which was based on plants sent by Ridley from the original site, mentioned flowers with large and without any spots.
For me, a plant that deserves the name robinsonii would be one with a proven origin from Gunung Tahan, Malaysia, no matter what it looks like. A torti would be from Sumatra, a celebsense from Sulawesi, a johorense from Gunung Panti. No point to give linii any status as a regional variant, since it occurs in bullenianums heartland, Sarawak.
Since Ramons plant has no proof of origin plus its typical bullenianum staminode, I'd call it just that.
 
Thanks a lot for teh discussion. Very educative (especially for me!) :)

Just to summarize... so far, the consensus:

appletonianum (or hybrid): 2
bullenianum (including celebensis): 5
tortipetalum (is this bullenianum or appletonianum?): 1
linii (isn't this also a syn of bullenianum? not sure of the real status of this): 1 (plus me, as this is the closest one I could find in Birk's book)

added later: ok, I think my question regarding linii has been answered in the meantime by carsten :)

as per the origin of the plant, yes, the only thing I know (now) is that it comes from L&R Orchids, which is a New Zealand and not an Australian nursery as mentioned before...
 
Carsten I'm not ignoring you I'll find that ref for leaf color and get back to you - busy week...
 
I think linii is a synonym of celebesense, which is a synonym of bullenianum.....
 
This flower looks to me like a deformed example of P. celebesense which I collected in Sulawesi in 1978. The foliage seems consistent with that species.

The photo from the Orchidweb site is of P. celebesense.

P. tortipetalum was named by Jack Fowlie as from Sarawak.

P. linii is not a sub-species of P. celebesense.


Tim: If you have documented plants of P. robinsonii from Gunong Panti, please give us more background. Can you show photos?
I hope you are careful and accurate in your attempts to keep your selfings of geographically separate species pure.

The Bullenianum mess needs to be sorted out. Probably will never happen now with CITES.

Lance Birk
 
This flower looks to me like a deformed example of P. celebesense which I collected in Sulawesi in 1978. The foliage seems consistent with that species.

The photo from the Orchidweb site is of P. celebesense.

P. tortipetalum was named by Jack Fowlie as from Sarawak.

P. linii is not a sub-species of P. celebesense.


Tim: If you have documented plants of P. robinsonii from Gunong Panti, please give us more background. Can you show photos?
I hope you are careful and accurate in your attempts to keep your selfings of geographically separate species pure.

The Bullenianum mess needs to be sorted out. Probably will never happen now with CITES.

Lance Birk

All the info on tortipetalum that I've come across puts in on the Malay archipelago and not on Borneo/Sarawak.

What a mess!! Anyway Ramon, tortipetalum is from the bullenianum side of the family rather than appletonianum.

You can see that for these big variable species groups, its all location, location, location.....
 
interesting.. and indeed, it seems to be a big mess around these species...

I have commented to my friend about the current status in this thread about his plant, and he sent me a picture of another plant he has, which was labelled as Paph celebense ("confirmed"), coming also from the same nursery...

it looks quite similar, but IMO pretty different to the plants shown first here... at least the staminodium looks very different (IMO).. whatdo you think?
 

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pretty crazy man!

I know we've all been looking at those staminodes to try to figure out what this flower is, but who has a copy of Slipper Orchids of Vietnam (by Averyanov)?

On page 222 of my edition, Leonid has drawn the 16 variations of the shape of appletonianum staminodes he has found in Vietnamese populations.

It covers everything from heart shaped, spade shaped, to the typical round with a notch bit out of the bottom.

On page 227 there are photos of 7 appletonianum flowers from 4 different provinces in Vietnam.

Looking at the diversity of these appletonianums (just in Vietnam) would probably cover just about all the bullenianum variants as well.

He also mentions in the text there is just as much variation in plant habit. From strongly checkered to not checkered at all, but "typically" there is no pigment under the leaves.

I'm sticking with some variant of bullenianum for my guess for the first plant. The second one just posted could be an appletonianum variant.

Ramon the only way to know what it is for sure is to know where its parents came from.

It's kind of like you see someone with dark hair and dark complexion. Are they Italian, Greek, Middle East / Arabic, Indian. If they were born in the US then they are "American", but I guess the question is of heritage and parentage. And without the context of geography a person with dark hair could be any of the above.
 

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