Paphiopedilum liemianum 'Birchwood' HCC/AOS x self

[naoki]

This is the first bloom of Paphiopedilum liemianum 'Birchwood' HCC/AOS x self (CH-19394) from Orchids by Hausermann. This group of plants are pretty confusing to me. I have quite a few books about Paphiopedilum, but I don't have Cribb's book. Does Cribb's book has detailed taxonomic & ecological information about this group (including taxonomic keys)?


Paphiopedilum liemianum 'Birchwood' HCC/AOS x self on Flickr


Paphiopedilum liemianum 'Birchwood' HCC/AOS x self on Flickr


Paphiopedilum liemianum 'Birchwood' HCC/AOS x self on Flickr

 

[ehanes7612]

the leaf morphology of liemianum is pretty distinct.i had a division of birchwood years ago..incredible flower

 

[phraggy]

A lovely plant. Good shape and wonderful colour --or is it color!!!!

Ed

 

[eggshells]

Beautiful flower.

 

[Rick]

Cribb's book points out how confusing this group is too.

As noted, the foliage is distinctive with red/purple bars (of spots) on the undersides of the leaves.

The most "typey" flowers of this species have a white margin to the dorsal sepal. But this tends to be variable from plant to plant.

 

[SlipperFan]

A lovely plant. Good shape and wonderful colour --or is it color!!!!

Ed

Either is acceptable, and very appropriate!

 

[abax]

I'm writing the name of this one down. I like it very much...and I want
one.

 

[SlipperKing]

Yep. What's the leaves look like?

 

[eaborne]

Nice color!

 

[naoki]

Thanks all, and thank you for the info about the leaf color. I'm sure this is pretty close to the typical type of this species (I'm just picking up trivial things for my learning purpose, I guess). One thing I wasn't sure was the shape of staminode, which looked slightly different from others posted in ST. The top part of mine seems to be flat or slightly recessed in the middle (like 'M'), but other photos of this species on ST are mostly rounded. This could be due to the angle, or it is more likely to be just the variation among individuals as Rick said.

It is somewhat amazing to see lots of variation from a species with limited distribution. I wonder some of the variation is created by human (i.e. the taxonomy of this group has been weird for a long time, so people may have introduced genes from different species.

Braem & Chiron mentions that the leaves of P. liemianum are ciliate (I'm assuming that this means it has hairs) from tip to bottom while some other species have the hairs only at the base of leaves:






Now, does this look like P. moquettianum?:


Paphiopedilum moquettianum on Flickr


Paphiopedilum moquettianum on Flickr

It was labelled as Paphiopedilum glaucophyllum var. moquettianum. This is from 2003, when I was starting with Paphs, and this was my 2nd paph which I could flower. I believe it is from Bob & Lynn Wellenstein (AnTec Laboratory), but it could be from Sam Tsui (Orchid Inn). This and P. liemianum are the only 2 Cochlopetalums I have grown. I can see the differences (the pattern of dorsal dark marking, staminode shape, petal width:length ratio), but they look similar, too. I'm not sure P. moquttianum is supposed to have the white margin for the dorsal sepal. P. moquetteanum is supposed to have big leaves, but I vaguely remember the size was similar to my current P. liemianum (and I don't have the photo of the leaves).

 

[SlipperKing]

It could even be a hybrid. It doesn't look like a typical moquet that I'm use to seeing.

 

[Rick]

It could even be a hybrid. It doesn't look like a typical moquet that I'm use to seeing.

Me too. I don't think Ive ever seen a moquetianum with a white margin-ed dorsal. And the dorsal pattern is either lines of fine spots or random fine spotting on a solid light colored background.

If it doesn't have significant red spotting on the leaves (like your leimianum) then I'd be inclined to call it a gluacophylum.

 

[naoki]

Thanks, Rick x 2. It's long gone, and I don't remember the details. I guess it was probably a hybrid, then.

 

[tomkalina]

It looks like glaucophyllum.

 

[NYEric]

That whole group of Paphs has been mixed and matched and crossed up for years, Oh well, thanks for sharing.

 

[atlantis]

Whatever it is... it´s a sweet cochlo.

 

[Trithor]

Irresponisible hybridising has made telling them apart difficult. However there are a lot of them out there which remain distinct. The question is wether the distinction is geographical or distinct species. This is a group very similar in merging just like the callosum/barbatum/lawrenceanum, distinct at the extremes, but very difficult to tell apart where they overlap. We love to separate them on the basis of leaf character rather than floral character, but I suppose that glaucophylum referes exactly to a leaf character rather than a floral distinction.