Great pics on this mother's day, Elaine!

Jim

Very sweet and I love the Orchids too!
Cute kid handling the soil!! You trained her well.

Yeah, sorry to hijack the thread a bit, but . . . hey, I'm on 'mother overload' here. Her dad (my son, the engineer geek) and her grandad (my husband, the other engineer geek) think I am on a mission to corrupt her early in life. Darned right I am! She already speaks in 3 syllable 'sentences', so her first significant word could be "Catt ley a" . . .

Now, let's get back to orchids, until next Mother's Day at least??

My Maxillaria tenuifolia finally blooms..just as we are going to mid 90's here..hope it holds!

How very nice!!

I love the tenuifolia flower.

Jim

Hi Elaine,
Congrats on the new grandbaby. I am about to get a puppy on Tuesday since my grand kids are now 9 and 16!

Just wanted to straighten you out about OrchidWiz. These poor souls are really at the mercy! I'm sure the name changes are a nightmare for them. They are right in the middle of the taxonomy stuff since so many orchid people rely on their database to be accurate. They are much more than names. I get all my culture info, historic info, and can store my photos with this software. There is a lot of geographical info too. I can look up the orchids of each country and find new names for hybrids. I've even contributed photos to them. Yes they are a commercial product that few growers need. They have discounts for orchid societies so I think that was their original marketing plan. I bought it because I put orchids in shows and post culture info every few days on my forum, but our orchid society has one and our member Marc looks up the names for most members for our show so no one needs to own it. The real source of name info is the RHS which Ursula has used for years for free. I think folks gossip about OrchidWiz without ever having seen it because it is expensive or they don't use many of its features. But it's a wonderful rich source of info for those who need it and I use it daily so I think it's worth it's weight in gold! And Jim, I use the old names and know I have the new names if I need them on OrchidWiz. It's really not worth all the gnashing of teeth. This is sposta be a hobby so have fun and use whatever name you want! That's my 2 cents.

That makes a lot of sense to me, Kathy, that an Orchid Society or any orchid group should get together and buy one subscription to share. It's way too expensive for individuals to have to buy.

My irritation is not with OrchidWiz themselves, who as you point out, do a lot of work to supply their service. The constant need to update the names is a pain for everyone, jmho, and reflects the ego of scientists making changes just because they can. It's the growers selling orchids to the rest of us - even at shows! - with incorrect name tags. When an excellent resource like OrchidWiz is available, I'd think the growers/sellers have no excuse to sell an orchid mis-labeled. The people making money marketing orchids should make the effort to keep up, don't you think?

For myself, I doubt I will ever show any of mine so as you say it's a hobby and I can call them whatever I want. (and Jim, bless him, will correct the name sometimes if I post the wrong one!)

Always glad to have your two cents worth, Kathy. I wouldn't look these orchids up if I didn't enjoy it. I do use it for shows however and I would rather have my own than ask favors all the time. Their updates tend to keep me on top of the latest developments and I like that. The more I use it, the better I like it.

Jim

I wish it would work on a Mac…

Another noid. It is on 3' scapes.

I doubt the taxonomists are thinking about us hobbyists. They are just correcting mistakes made through empirical observations with new scientific discovery (genetics). I wish there was more info to explain what is happening. It would help us just take this stuff in stride. Personally, I think we should pull up our big girl pants and stop all the complaining. It's actually pretty exciting trying to make sense of our world again. I like the new info about the Big Bang and the new stuff on Neanderthals too!
I ran into this article for a start http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/...

Glen, very nice!
Could this be Laelia anceps?

Thanks Kathy for the terrific link! I realized, I not only have read this article before, and after checking for the other articles as part of this special issue, I had bought the whole special issue of Orchid Biology as it was published in 2009. Interesting stuff!
Will spend some time re-reading more.
It seems you are watching Cosmos too? One of the best TV shows lately!

However, although it is always a good thing to meet new things with a positive attitude, I would think the RHS comes up at times with stuff you can only shake your head. ( my favorite example, the Jackfowlieara, did I spell this right without checking?)
And even molecular analyses isn't always used to properly place some Orchids. I had posted this pdf article last month, you need to copy/ paste the "link", to download the very short piece.
GUARIANTHE, A GENERIC NAME FOR THE “CATTLEYA” SKINNERI COMPLEX

and please be amazed why Cattleya bowringiana was placed into the Guarianthe complex. I surely was when I read it! Heck, I am still amazed.

As has been said about scientific advances, the scientists get carried away with what they're doing. Just because they can that doesn't mean that they should.

i.e. Just because you can now examine every orchid in the world at the molecular level doesn't mean you should re-name or re-classify them all. When even dedicated orchid hobbyists like Ursula get amazed by the changes, surely they've gone too far, and are still going?

Ok, nuff said from me. Big girl pants are now hitched up.

This little cutie just opened today. It is a relative of our native Encyclia tampensis and it is called Prosyclia [Prc.] Memoria Young C. Lott. I have also seen it called an Epidendrum but that is another story. The label says Epc. but I think that is wrong.

Jim

Y'all have such a wide range of genera, Jim. And so much that is blooming. I am jealous.

The RHS changed their website, it took me a while to get to the Orchid Register, but here is your plant, Jim - if you like.
http://apps.rhs.org.uk/horticu...

Pretty!

Yes, that pretty well agrees with what I had. The only fuzzy thing for me is how an Encyclia parent can produce an Epidundrum. I understand calling it a Prosyclia.

Jim

According to Kew, both parents have Epidendrum listed as synonym.

http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/named...

http://apps.kew.org/wcsp/synon...