Cycnodes o Mormodes

[Bruno De Toni]

Ok guys, here I put the result of my first intergeneric hybrid between a cycnoches chlorochilon (pollen parent) and a mormodes buccinator (pod parent). Well I was a little dissapointed because the final result was a mormodes shape plant with a very strange ivory color. I read several articles from Fred Clark regarding this intergeneric breeding and he emphasized that mormodes is dominant for color and cycnoches is dominant for shape, but apparently does not work always like that. The dark orange of the mormodes parent did not pass it to the descendant plant, but the shape remained almost intact. There are slight changes in the lip shape and size but any one who looks this plant will never say that is a cycnodes. I have others seedlings, another one will bloom in a pair of weeks and the rest next year. I will wait to see the result of the others plants but I am very surprised with this one. I am not familiar with genetics, so it will be very nice to hear comments from other people that manage this field if they can give me some explanations.

[Aceetobe]

Color is a very difficult thing in genetics, it is usually controlled on many different genes. If one pathway goes wrong in one of the genes you get in essence absence of color, which is why there are alba forms of a lot of orchids.

I would guess based on these results that one of the parents of your buccinator was a light parent.

I'm going to guess that 1/2 of the total seedlings end up with a buccinator type color. However, I have no clue about the flower shape. I'm probably going to Sunset Valley tomorrow, so I'll ask Fred myself.

I know that Fred himself doesn't really ever use chlorochilon, this might be why.

[isurus79]

Im surprised that you are dissapointed with this cross. The color is really unique, though Im surprised the shape is so Mormodes and not the usual hybrid shape. I had the pleasure of visiting Gene Monnier on the Big Island last week and we discussed the difference between using chlorochilon vs. warscewiczii in hybridizing with Mormodes. If I remember correctly, chlorochilon tends to add a large flower size but not much color to it progeny (a colorless template if you will, so that the color is the same as the Mormodes parent or is actually intesified), while warscewiczii adds shape and a lot of yellow to the progeny. I really hope I got that right, but I think I did. How many other seedlings to you have from this hybrid? One blooming is certainly not indicitive of the entire cohort. Is this the first blooming of many?

[kavanaru]

Toni, the colour ofthis plant is great! indeed, it is weird that the shape is "too much" Mormodes, but somehow it makes it more interesting... I would wait for the other seedlings to bloom and compare... I would be interested to seeing them

[cowboy51278]

How many of them have you bloomed out? Has there been any variability?

[Bruno De Toni]

Thanks for everyone for the comments. I agree with Aceetobe, I mean that the orange color of the buccinator it may be not totally pure and there are others genes with different colors that are playing in the result. Regarding Steve comment, I would have expected for this crossing a different shape too, and not this one. This is my first blooming, I made the crossing in 2006 and I had a lot of seedlings deaths because they were unattended for a while since I was traveling quite a lot last year. Only six seedlings survived from more or less 100 plants. I hope that one of those can give me a different blooming result. The point of view of Ramon is interesting, if you see the lip of the flower is indeed much more enhanced that the parent, it has a very pronounced horse chair shape, actually the size of the flowers are bigger than the pod parent plant. In any way the plant is very robust and I would expect that next year blooming will be very outstanding. I will try to make this breeding again but using the Cycnoches as a pod parent, if I hopfully get a female flower next year.

[Aceetobe]

Any more of the seedlings bloom?

[Bruno De Toni]

Yes, I forgot to reply, but the other plant gave me the same kind of flowers posted in this thread. Now I have to wait untill next season to see the rest of the seedlings bloom.

[nancy]

There is no subject that I know less about, but these flowers are really personable and attractive - you might be disappointed that they aren't what you would expect, but they are still worthy.
If you do not like them, you must send them to me!
Immediately!
Cheers - Nancy

[Aceetobe]

There is a possibility that you have parthenogenesis or a freak occurance of cleistogamy - that is the mormodes provided both sets of chromosomes, and the pollination didn't really "take".