The flower is Pot. Hoku Gem 'Freckles' (we made & registered the cross with Bl Richard Mueller x Slc Tangerine Jewel, as parents). Since then, the revisionists have renamed the parents to: Bc Richard Mueller and C Tangerine. Hence, the change from Pot. to Bc. Hoku Gem.
Hoku is the Hawaiian word for star. We named Hoku Gem (Gem for Tangerine Jewel) at a time when there was awakened awareness, in Hawaii, of traditional polynesian sea voyaging, and ancient celestial & other navigation without modern instruments. In the late 1970's, Hawaii's Polynesian Voyaging Society constructed a traditional twin hulled ocean voyaging canoe (with sails). Navigated by a native of micronesia and a crew from Hawaii, this twin-hulled canoe sailed from Tahiti to Hawaii & back, without using any sextants, compasses of any other modern navigational instruments. The navigator taught the crew navigation techniques which had been handed down for generations. The canoe was named "Hokulea", a reference to the star Arcturus, in the northern hemisphere.
We bred & registered an epidendrum hybrid at that time. We named it Epidendrum Hokulea. So Hoku Gem was king of a follow up soon after.
We also bloomed 'Freckles & cloned it several times in our lab. The spot patterns are very distinct, especially in the lip. However, as mentioned in the posts above, the flower colors will change from reddish to yellow as the flowers mature & many of the spots will fade into the background or "bleed" to a speckled overlay. Very nice. When you have numerous flowers of different states of maturity, on several spikes, there is a colorful display of sunset colors.
I once had a variegated plant of Pot Hoku Gem that had green leaves with nice variegations. When the leaves were still young, the variegations were pink. So imagine that ... green & white & pink leaves, with reddish, red-spotted & yellow flowers.
Last edited by catwalker808; 09-01-2011 at 02:50 AM..
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