Here is the next plant up for my team. This is Paphiopedilum bellatulum. It is actually a sibling cross of two different clones. P. bellatulum 'Perfecto' x P. bellatulum 'Super Clone'.


This flower measured 7.4cm. x 7.2cm. This species has been awarded well over 200 times. With our computer software, we can look at about 12 thumbnails at a time on my laptop. We went back some 20 years covering many awards. This particular flower is one of the better examples we saw.
The trend in this species by the hybridizers is to get darker and darker flowers. Ultimately trying for mostly a complete dark burgundy flower with very little ivory showing. We awarded this flower an AM of 84 points!
Which says a whole lot!!! With that many awards we should be awarding superior clones and that is exactly what we did. All 3 of us judges thought that this would rank up there as one of the top members of this species to get an award!!!
Quality for sure!

Up next is an unregistered hybrid. This is a hybrid of Paphiopedilum Quantum Light x Paphiopedilum concolor 'album'



But as I sit here sharing this with you all, I am puzzled! Why? Well, we awarded this an HCC of 76 points. We described the flower color as concolor pale yellow. But where in the world did the yellow come from?
Concolor 'album' is ivory white. Paph. Quantum Light is a hybrid of Paphiopedilum niveum, which is typically white, sometimes with varying amounts of fine red spotting, and Paph.S. Gratrix. Gratrix is ivory white with usually pink or red spots. Again, nothing in the parentage supports a pale yellow flower.
I must go back and look into P. Gratrix and look for pale yellow clones.
This all assumes that the listed parents are correct.
Now concolor can be a beautiful yellow color but there are a few pale yellow clones. I am thinking that maybe the one parent was not a true album but a pale yellow clone.
But regardless, we did like the color and form of this flower, regardless of what it really might be. It was a flower with a natural spread of 6.8cm. x 5.9 cm.

I still think the first two you showed us today have been the best. The last two don't immediately shake hands with me, but, of course, they are still beautiful in their own way.

I think the Paph bellatulum is very showy, I love that one!
The Coelogyne is adorable, it looks a lot like Coel fimbriatum.

I woke up early today, couldn't sleep anymore. But as I await my morning coffee, I wanted to look into 2 things that I mentioned yesterday.
#1 is, I have no idea where that pale yellow color comes from in that Pahpiopedilum Quantum Light x Paphiopedilum concolor 'album' hybrid. Not a clue. There are a couple of award images that I found for P. concolor album and they were both white without a single spot. There isn't a hint of yellow anywhere.
I looked at about 25 P. S. Gratrix flowers quality awards as well. I could not find any yellow there either! It is a bit odd. I am beginning to wonder if the genes of this flowers were both carrying a recessive yellow trait and it somehow manifested itself in this hybrid? Very interesting.

I looked into that Coelogyne ovalis award history too! Personally I think that we did not arrive at a proper decision on that one. Is BigBill admitting to a mistake by AOS judges?! Well, yes and no.
I looked at the lowest pointed CCM award for that species and I think that the flower count was good enough on this plant for an 80 or 81 point CCM. For those of you who do not know, a CCM award is a cultural award that goes to the grower of the plant. It is not a flower quality award. So we may have been in error there.
But then I looked at the 2 images I have on my cell phone of that plant yesterday and I noticed something that I had missed before. There were a good number of yellowing, or yellow leaves on that plant. A lot of those should have been removed by the owner. It is known as "grooming". But that takes time and patience. Not all people are willing to do that. There were also quite a few brown leaf tips as well. So maybe that plant really looks better at first glance then it actually was. So if the flower count was suspect, all of these leaf issues might have kept it from being awarded. If you would care to, just look back at that image and you will see what am I talking about. Is it being overly critical? Perhaps. But we are suppose to award only the best of the best.

I am not sure if anyone grows these large, strap leaved Paphiopedilum species like rothschildianum, adductum, stonei etc. but here is one that I thought was kind of cool yesterday at judging. This is Paphiopedilum wilhelminiae. It is a compact grower, roughly one third the size of Paphiopedilum rothschildianum.


This flower had a natural spread of 15.4 cm. so a bit over 6". Vertical natural spread was 8.7 cm. which is about 3 1/2". But it was a neat looking plant with three flowers. At first we thought that they were a pale yellow color but taking it into some sunshine brought out a chartreuse component. Each petal was twisted 3 full twists providing some consistency or uniformity.


The dorsal sepals were clearly striped burgundy with a hint of brown. Pouch was attractive suffused with that same color.
But if you can't find space to grow a monster like rothschildianum, maybe wilhelminiae would suffice?
We really liked this species and granted it an 85 point AM!!

I took a few more looks at the Coelogyne. You are talking about the touch of yellowing? I think trimming those leaves would have marred this beautiful and happy looking plant?

The Paph wilhelminiae looks great!

Well you have to remember, I am speaking from a judging perspective.

Personally, I can only wish to be able to grow something that well. For me, a few bad leaves would not matter.
But, that is all I have from yesterday. This entire Orchids Up North thing is really a good idea. Since Michigan is a northern, cooler state, growers account for that in their plant collections. I am always looking to introduce every one to things that they might not normally see.
Well, until next month.

It was wonderful to see that we all as a group had some images in the Newsletter this week!!

BigBill said: I woke up early today, couldn't sleep anymore. But as I await my morning coffee, I wanted to look into 2 things that I mentioned yesterday.
#1 is, I have no idea where that pale yellow color comes from in that Pahpiopedilum Quantum Light x Paphiopedilum concolor 'album' hybrid. Not a clue. There are a couple of award images that I found for P. concolor album and they were both white without a single spot. There isn't a hint of yellow anywhere.
I looked at about 25 P. S. Gratrix flowers quality awards as well. I could not find any yellow there either! It is a bit odd. I am beginning to wonder if the genes of this flowers were both carrying a recessive yellow trait and it somehow manifested itself in this hybrid? Very interesting.

I know Paphs have more complicated albinism genes than Cyms, but I am not surprised by the yellow.

Albinism typically means that the plant has an inability to produce certain pigments (in Cyms these are the anthocyanins that produce red, orange, brown, pink and purple). Albinism is a recessive trait, so the only way it manifests is if all copies of the relevant gene have the trait. When that occurs, the normal pigmentation is suppressed but the plant still carries the genes for it. Consider the alba and regular forms of Cym. tracyanum:



In 'Woodside', the alba trait blocks the expression of the spots and stripes. However, if you crossed an alba tracyanum to any non-alba Cym, you will see the spots and stripes return in the progeny! That's because the genes for that flower pattern still exist in the alba, they're just not visible due to the alba trait blocking the production of the pigment.

I strongly suspect something similar has happened here. Paph concolor is normally yellow, so the "album" form is presumably an albinistic one that blocks the normal production of the xanthin (yellow) pigment (this idea in itself is intriguing, as it suggests that the base colour in Paph concolor is tied to its ability to produce spots). When crossed with a regular Paph the yellow would be reasserted. The pale colour is the result of the white pigment of Quantum Light diluting it (as the colour alleles would be one white, one yellow).

Note that just because Quantum Light is white does not make it an albino. Both of its parents have a white base colour but exhibit spots, so at best QL would be an albino-carrier (since albinism is recessive) and that's only if one of the parents was an albino or albino carrier.

It was judging day today and it was a Habenaria day with 9 of the 13 entries from that genus! But more on those plants soon.
First I want to show you a great big Fredclarkeara hybrid that came to the table. Actually there were two plants of the same grex. One I will not show because the flowers were not as nice on the open inflorescence. There was a second inflorescence with about a dozen flowers that had just begun to open.
Now I know that most orchid growers are aware of Fredclarkeara After Dark!! This is the hybrid with 2"+ flowers that seem to be almost black in color. But these flowers are not dark purple! Here is a Fredclarkeara Raffy Pye which is bright green as you can clearly see.



These flowers were a bright green in color and almost round with a Catasetum expansion lip. Notice how frilly it is. It is a hybrid of Fredclarkeara Turning Point x Catasetum De Etta Harris. This candidate had 19 flowers of very waxy substance.



Just look at how green these flowers are. There is a bright yellow area in the center of the lip near the point of attachment right below the column. These flowers are much larger then those of After Dark measuring close to 3 3/4".
The mother plant was quite substantial in size. This hybrid was made by Pye and registered in 2021. There might have been some hesitation there because here is an award the following year. And judging by the size of the plant, it is not a seedling but a mature plant. Pseudobulb was about 28" tall and a good 3" round near the base. It just had to be a few years old.

These next two plants I have to show you are two different clones of the same hybrid. These are both Habenaria Pinkie. The parents of Pinkie are Habenaria Pink Butterfly x Habenaria carnea. Carnea is a very soft pink species with varying degrees of a richer pink blush on the segments.



This is a nice light pink flower of fairly uniform color. Flowers are bit more then an inch wide by 2" tall. They are nicely arranged on the inflorescence.
Here is another clone of H. Pinkie.



For those viewers that are not familiar with Habenarias, these are terrestrial orchids. The top center of the flower features a smallish hooded dorsal. The petals are most often tucked up inside the dorsal. The white segments are the lateral sepals. Many times in Habenaria, they are quite reflexed. The bilk of the flower is made up of the lip. The lip often constitutes 80% of the flower.
Notice how this clone has deeper, richer color. The pink and white makes for a nice contrast!
This time of year, most Habenarias are losing their foliage and they are headed into dormancy.

Here is a third image of Pinkie that I overlooked.

Bill, the Fredclarkeara is stunning! That is green!! Actually really beautiful!
I love both pink Habenarias, pretty blooms.
Yes, mine is done blooming and on its way to sleep!

Thanks Bill. I always enjoy your reports!

Thanks very much.
I am trying to post and watch the Yankees at the same time.

Here are a couple of Habenaria rhodocheila clones that came to the judging table. The first is a compact deep orange clone.



A few years back, I use to think of this as Habenaria roebbelenii. But recently, back in 2019, it was put into rhodocheila. This is a compact plant with 13 flowers that are an inch wide by 1 1/4" tall. What gorgeous color!!



This is a yellow clone of rhodocheila. It is a much taller plant then the previous one. It is a species that comes in pale pink, dark pink, coral pink, salmon red, dark orange and red. I personally enjoy seeing the darker colors as they are quite attractive. Real attention getters!!!

Very pretty for sure!

Here is one that I have not seen previously. This is Habenaria Galah. It is a primary hybrid of Habenaria carnea which is a light pink species, and Habenaria janellehayneana.



These are fairly even, moderately pink flowers with a little reddish blush in the center of the lip. This was not awarded today even though it drew attention.
Why not? Because there are several bright, deeply pink flowers around with a certain WOW factor to them. I don't see a WOW factor here. It is a bit more like a Ho Hum factor. We do not award Ho humness!!

Lastly I have two clones of Habenaria Spoonbill which I introduced you to last month. Scroll back to see a couple of images.





Spoonbill is Habenaria rhodocheila x Habenaria janellehayneana. I didn't think that these two clones just above were as nice as the spoonbill from last month. I think that here, the color is not as vibrant. What do you think?

Until next month!

Wow. Talk about a Habenaria show

I like
"We do not award Ho humness!!"

Funny!
I think they are charming! And not difficult to grow!

The Ho humness comes because I catch myself just loving Habenarias! I find myself loving the single growth, the leafy base and the brightly colored flowers. You just want to award every one of them!
But we can't do that!

Some just have to be closer to mediocre or average. I guess we might call that " dampening our enthusiasm?!"