I came home from a few days of vacation to this lovely little one in full bloom. It is a mini Cattleya hybrid from Karge in Germany, and it is their own hybrid named after the town where the family lives. There is not much information to be found about this hybrid on the internet, all I know is that it is a cross between C. Daffodil x C. Hybrid. I wrote to Karge and asked what they other hybrid was, but they could not remember…
On top of that there are at least two registered C. Daffodil hybrids that I could find, and there are probably more, popular name… One is Rhyncanthe Daffodil (Rhyncholaelia glauca x Guarianthe aurantiaca) registered in 1949 by Fennell. The other possible parent is Lc Daffodil (Lc Mercia x Laelia Jongheana) registered in 1907 by Armstrong/Brown. Lc stands for Laeliocattleya which is an intergeneric hybrids between Laelia and Cattleya. Apparently there is also a Blc Daffodil (Blc Irma x Blc Trimabilis) registered too in 1940 by Sladden but I cannot find it in the The International Orchid Register (thanks Pook). Brassolaeliocattleya is an intergenetic (trigeneric) hybrid from Brassavola, Cattleya and Laelia.
I really have no idea which one is involved here though… what a genetic soup… In any case, I bought this at the Sofiero Orchid Show in Sweden last year and I really like it. It is cute, easy one to grow and it is nice and compact. I grow mine mounted on a clay pipe under intermediate medium light conditions.
What a wonderful coming-home present to get! 🙂
A small question: what does “Lc” and “Blc” stand for?
Also, how do you “create” hybrids? By cross-pollination?
Many thanks in advance Karma!
Thansk Marius! 🙂 Yes, it was very nice to come home to, especially since you are always worried something might go wrong when you are gone for more than a couple of days… Lc = Laeliocattleya (Laelia x Cattleya). Blc = Brassolaeliocattleya (Brassavola x Cattleya x Laelia). There are some natural hybrids found among orchids, and then tons of man made ones. Both are created by cross pollination. Crosses between different genera are called intergeneric hybrids and are given new (often) long complicated combination names, such as Brassolaeliocattleya, that is why you usually see the abbreviations. I have written a little bit more on orchid nomenclature here.
It looks great but that is one of the reasons why I prefer to grow species or a few primary hybrids now.
I wonder if teh pedigree is so important. I am a relative novice but by frequenting forums etc etc the name tag seems to have become a big deal.
Most of the time I think the blooms of the species look way more interesting than some crazy hybrids like some Phals that look like that have small pox, woudl always like a Phal equestris a lot better.
Also I wonder if something is rotten in the Orchid classification because it does not make sense to have intergeneric hybrids when I think in the rest of teh plant world you can cross species but you can’t cross flowers of a different genus (maybe I am wrong).
Anyway that looks great, well grown and great looking bloom. But I just wonder what is the rationale of making crosses of crosses of crosses… I am just happy with natural selection.
I found the Blc Daffodil for you on the RHS site. I went to
http://apps.rhs.org.uk/horticulturaldatabase/orchidregister/
and clicked on the Parentage tab. I inserted “Irma” for the Seed Parent Grex Name. The answer comes up on the second page of results under Rhyncholaeliocattleya Daffodil.
Ah… there it is!! Thanks Pook, and welcome to the blog! 🙂 Not easy to dig up was it. Thanks though. Really nice to see it in “print”. (Rhyncholaeliocattleya Daffodil Synonym Genus Name: Brassolaeliocattleya) I agree with your deduction on Orchids Interactive too, the Lc Daffodil (Lc Mercia x Laelia Jongheana) seems the most likely candidate, even though it is a hard call to make not knowing what the mystery pollen parent is…
Stefano: The longer I grow orchids, the more of a “species snob” I become… I think some hybrids are fantastic, but find I am more passionate about natural selection as well. Although I still fancy some primary hybrids, especially in the Paphiopedilum genus. And a few other random crosses, like this little Cattleya for various reasons. I think that is one of the fascinating aspects of orchids, the incredible versatility and adaptability… that fact that you even can make these crosses. Even though I too agree that with over 25,000 orchid species in the world (that we know of so far) I don’t see a need to make there intergenetic super crosses… but it is (of course) all a matter of taste. 😉