I'm back and I just re-read what I wrote yesterday. I think the genus part of the name looks pretty good so let's continue with the second term in the name, the species or the Grex. Remember, if it is a species, a naturally occurring orchid, it starts with a lower case letter and is written in Latin. Examples are Galeottia grandiflora and Spathogolttis plicatta. The name may be descriptive as to the size of the flower or the place where it is found, like Encyclia tampensis. Also, species names can be used in multiple genera. For example, floribunda is a popular species name and can be a Habenaria, a Masdevallia, a Maxillaria or several other genera and the flowers are not at all related.
If it is an offspring of hybrids, it is a Grex and is never written in Latin and begins with a capital letter. It is easy to detect a Grex as the name can be something like Lyonara Memoria Doug Lace or Encyclia Hunty's Heartburn. No, I didn’t make that up. The hybridizer must pay a fee and can then name it what he likes. It is important to note that that the parents of a Grex named orchid will always produce that orchid regardless of how the hybrid is made. For example, if orchid A is the seed parent and orchid B is the pod parent it produces a Grex orchid named C. Now if they remake the orchid using orchid A as the Pod parent and orchid B as the seed parent, it will still be Grex orchid C. For that reason, orchids with the same Grex name may not look at all alike.
It is this second name that I type into OrchidWiz to try to figure out what new orchid I just bought. If it is misspelled or I can’t read it, it can be a long evening.
OK, I’ll let you chew on that and will return tomorrow to talk about the third term in your orchid name, the cultivar or clonal name.
Jim
