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Originally Posted by RosieC
Wonderful, looks just brilliant to me. I love that yellow on the lip.
Something I don't quite understand about Alba forms accross all orchids. Sometimes they have to be completely white, sometimes like this they have some colour. How is it decided what makes it 'Alba'.
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Rosie, your question does not have an easy answer, unfortunately! The Latin word 'alba' and its relative 'album' means white. Horticulturally speaking, most of times it is used to designate white flowers, but this is not mandatory. For example, James Veitchi described Laelia purpurata var. alba, which in fact was not an alba, but a flower that had white sepals and petals and pink lip. On the other hand, take Cattleya mossiae var. wageneri and you will see that it is a white flower. But, this is not all. many call alba the xanthic (green with white lips only) varieties of flowers like Cattleya guttata, C. granulosa, C. forbesii etc.
I'm rising this just to say that naming orchids and especially naming varieties has no rule at all and the usage of the word 'alba' is no exception.
Anyway, in general, especially in the Cattleya alliance, a flower is considered an alba if it is white, but yellow in the throat and/or small amounts of green in the sepals tips, or at their bases are tolerable. In this alliance, the yellow in the throat is so common that in case the flower does not present that yellow it is called 'alba plena' (plena = completely). Alba plena varieties are very rare flowers in this alliance.
Hope that helps.
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