Ok, so I didn't read through everyone else response, but I am going to give my own opinion on this. I
do realize that there is a lot of controversy over the taxonomy of this, but I realize that true taxonomy and orchid hobbyists rarely perfectly mix, so I am going to give the hobbyists side of this. A true
tetraspis var. alba should NOT have any bars or spots, and the lip usually has little purple along the length. A normal
tetraspis has small spots and bars which can be somewhat irregular (which may be due to interbreeding with
speciosa).
Now, when it comes to
tetraspis 'C#1',
speciosa, and
speciosa var. christiana, the taxonomy gets ugly. Personally, I think these three can be considered the same, and
I put them under the name of
speciosa. Ignoring the whole taxonomy debate behind this, the reason I put
speciosa alone as a species is rather simple. Florally, the pigmentation mechanisms are distinct from
tetraspis. Depending on the conditions, you can get completely white flowers, or nearly solid red flowers, although most of the time they have red blotches of varying size and distribution.
tetraspis also shows variation with temperature and light, but it never has more than simple spots and bars.
I really find the breeding characteristics of
speciosa to be interesting, and that is why I am so adamant in keeping it separate, especially when coming to registering hybrids made with it. When bred with something like
violacea or something that has lots of
violacea in it, such as Purple Martin (Kenneth Schubert x
violacea),
speciosa carries on its characteristic of random colour splotches. Jennifer Palermo (
tetraspis x
violacea) will have a solid background, but it will have distinct bars over the flower from
tetraspis. A true Germain Vincent (
violacea x
speciosa), on the other hand, will look like
speciosa in a way, except what was white on
speciosa is now a saturated purple, with the splotches being even more saturated. When bred to barred species such as
amboinensis or
lueddemanniana, I don't think
speciosa will solidify anything, but it will provide slight randomness, whereas
tetraspis will usually reduce the amount of spots. When bred to
equestris, it produces fine spots. In general,
tetraspis, appears to breed like an
amboinensis, just contributing less of a solid spotting pattern.
---------- Post added at 02:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:52 PM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by orchideya
|
This is what I consider a
speciosa.
Linear Mode
