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It's gorgeous and have a very good shape for a C. violacea v. coerulea!Interesting that the genes that affect color would also influence shape.
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Hi Izzie. It might seem, by what we say, that we are genetically linking color with shape, but that's not necessarily the case.
For a lot of cat species, many of the coerulea forms may have rather poor shapes (according to standards held by serious collectors & hobbyists, or by various orchid judging groups). These are artificial human standards. The flowers are probably beautiful & highly desirable to nature's pollinators.
When kavanaru & I & others say things like "a good shape for a coerulea", we are not really meaning to imply that color form & shape come from the same or related genes. It's just that for many cat species, the coerulea (bluish) form occurs relatively infrequently compared to some other color forms. Just because there are fewer specimens to choose from, flowers with "good" shapes are much fewer in numbers than colors with many more specimens to choose from.
Hmmm. But you've raised a legitimate question. Natural elements, whether the environment or predators or pollinators, certainly can influence which flower forms & colors successfully reproduce. Perhaps there is a natural pollinator which favors the coerulea color forms & also favors flowers with slender curved propeller-like petals & sepals. After all, "beauty lies in the eye of the beholder." Natural pollinators have favored certain flower features long before human eyes beheld them. So there could very well be a link between color & shape. Maybe not a cause & effect link, but a link, nevertheless.
So there's another research topic for your studies.
C. violacea v coerulea
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