The end of the line.

[Heather]

Even if I could, I don't exactly think media trends from 1895 are exactly a big deal. Wasn't phrenology still a legit practice then?

Phrenology was common in the 1840's but I think its popularity had waned by 1895. Anyone wish to discuss whether J. H. Kellogg was a klismaphiliac?

J/K..carry on....

 

[Jon in SW Ohio]

It's 3:46AM... definitely sleepy time... perhaps we can reach the goal of 20 pages?

-Pat

We shall! And by that time we will have covered the Kennedy Assasination and the Moon landing and find out why they are all tied to the same event.

Jon
________
Roor Bongs

 

[slippertalker]

I'd like to take this thread in a slightly different direction and talk about fashion - why certain species and hybrids seem to go through peaks and valleys of popularity and ease of location. For a while, it was really hard to find a normal colored venustum. Now it seems easier to find phil. var. roebellinii than a true philiipinense. What about plants like adductum and randsii (which I know is somewhat related to it's resistance to breeding) that are just so hard to locate robust mature plants of. Are people just hoarding them? What about some of the older awarded plants that aren't being used to produce new hybrids anymore...will we just stop seeing plants with roth. 'Rex' in the background someday? An example of this is Lady Isabel made w/ roth 'Bion' x stonei 'Bion'. There were a bunch of people selling the cross a while back, but now it seems to not be as widely available.

Let's discuss!

Orchids have always gone through phases of popularity since they were first discovered. The latest thing on the block is always under more demand than something that is more common, at least until the roles are reversed.
Paph species were very much in demand in the late 1800's, then were supplanted by hybrids by reasons of rariety as much as anything. Complex paph hybrids were very sought after until the late 60's when species became the cat's meow again. The advent of newly found species led to new primary hybrids which are the current rage. Slowly but surely, complex hybrids will become more desireable again.

Paph adductum and randsii are generally just not fast growers. Randsii appears to be difficult to obtain seed from, much like parishii and on top of that grows slowly. Randsii is not the most exciting flower.........and there are just not a lot of plants out there.

Specific crosses like your Lady Isabel example are made by one nursery and were made a number of years ago. There are limited numbers that exist.

Even more rare are old turn of the century primary crosses, many of which have not been recreated. Over time, they led to complex hybrids, but they had interesting character in themselves. We have a few examples like Leeanum, but there were many others of interest. Much of the genetic material from these crosses only exists through their progeny.

With the amount of plants that were imported over 100 years ago, how many unique forms of species are gone forever?