Sophronitis wittigiana/rosea potting question

[alecStewart1]

Hello friends!

The Tarzane Group has these cute little Sophronitis wittigiana/rosea (don't which name is technically correct) and I couldn't help myself. It looks like a great mini-Catt for breeding with other minis as well.

It's cold to warm growing mini-Catt and from the looks of the pictures it's in sphagnum moss.

I was wondering if it'd be fine or better or worse in a small bark mix.

This is my first traditional looking Catt species, as I do have Leptotes pohlitinocoi.

[Roberta]

I grow it outside mounted. If you can meet the watering requirements of a mounted plant, it does grow well that way. It is one of the group that used to be Sophronitis. Current name is C. wittigiana - Kew doesn't even list C. rosea as a synonym, so it's been awhile since it went under that name. (If you want to determine the currently-accepted name for a species, go to the Kew Checklist (which tends to be unforgiving but it'd the "authority") or Orchidroots.com (which seems at the moment to be having problems).
Note that most of what used to be Sophronitis prefer to be more on the cool side - relatively high elevation, central and southern Brazil. C. cernua is probably the most warm-growing of the group. In general, your biggest challenge with this Sophronitis group will be Texas summers. They can put up with hot days if they can cool off at night. But that's the case for a lot of orchids.

Cattleya (Sophronitis) coccinea is the most-used of this group for hybridizing. It's in the background of many of the mini-Catts, especially the red ones. C. wittigiana has not been used as much, but there are some lovely hybrids with that one too. (Again, Orchidroots is a good place to learn about parentage)

[alecStewart1]

Originally Posted by Roberta

Cattleya (Sophronitis) coccinea is the most-used of this group for hybridizing. It's in the background of many of the mini-Catts, especially the red ones. C. wittigiana has not been used as much, but there are some lovely hybrids with that one too. (Again, Orchidroots is a good place to learn about parentage)

Hmm, I'm surprised with it being cold-warm growing and it's cute flower it'd be good for crossing with some warmer growing Catts for plants with more workable temp range and hopefully cute flowers.
Like with Brassavola nodosa, since I'd see a lot of Brassocattleya with interesting flowers.

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by alecStewart1

Hmm, I'm surprised with it being cold-warm growing and it's cute flower it'd be good for crossing with some warmer growing Catts for plants with more workable temp range and hopefully cute flowers.
Like with Brassavola nodosa, since I'd see a lot of Brassocattleya with interesting flowers.

According to Orchidwiz (as of the end of 2022), there are 31 first generation (F1) hybrids registered with this species. So it has been used quite a bit (but compare with the 373 F1 hybrids with C. (Sophronitis) coccinea) You can also look up hybrids in the RHS registry

[rbarata]

One of the very important requirements for this group (don't know if for all its members but, at least, for the most part of it) is high humidity and air flow. It can determine if it survives or not.

[Roberta]

Just for the record, here's mine from January, to show how I grow it,.