Lc. Crystelle Smith on a mount

[Picotee]

What a sweet little treasure.

[tucker85]

Originally Posted by goodgollymissmolly

Here is an opportunity to learn something important and not well enough understood.

Cattleya (formerly Laeliocattleya) Crystelle Smith 'Gold Throat' is a mericlone. Krull-Smith did it correctly by giving the hundreds (or maybe thousands) of mericlone seedlings a cultivar (clonal) name so that everyone who owns one realizes they own genetically identical plants. Unfortunately this seldom is done and it confuses the cultivar naming system badly when a bunch of identical plants are considered individual seedlings which they are not. They are "divisions" of a single plant and identical to it.

Why does it matter? You can see right here in this thread. The plant that Brooke owns is C. Crystelle Smith 'Gold Throat' AM/CCM-AOS. The plant has an Award of Merit and a Certificate of Cultural Merit. The AM is a flower quality award that applies to every C. Crystelle Smith 'Gold Throat' and if you own one you need to add AM/AOS to its name. The CCM goes to the grower (not the plant) so it does not apply to your plant.

There is at least one other mericlone batch of Crystelle Smith out there,Cattleya Crystelle Smith 'Krull's Hallelujah' HCC/AOS. That is a genetically different plant from Gold Throat.

So if you have either of these plants, you need to keep the cultivar name associated with its hybrid grex name so that others will know exactly what mericlone batch is represented.

Brooke can post her own picture if she wishes or you can find the picture in both AQPlus and Orchids Plus where the award is documented.

Those are all good points and worth noting. Brooke and I both own the same clone C. Crystelle Smith 'Gold Throat'. I only gave the clonal name in the body of the post rather than the title. My bad. I guess I thought that owners of other mericlones would also like to see this one. C. Crystelle Smith has garnered 25 awards and there are roughly 20 different mericlones around. I know of at least 5 different mericlones that are available presently.

[InspirChid1712]

Beautiful, Tucker!!! Your plants always have such great roots! (and blooms!)

[goodgollymissmolly]

There are only two AOS awards to C. Crystelle Smith 'Gold Throat'. Both are Brooke's.

But you make a valid point about C or Lc or Sc Crystelle Smith. Now my point is even more important. Are there 20 (I use your number) individual mericlones of beaufort x loddigesii (Crystelle Smith) out there or are these other awards made as individual clones when in fact they are not individual at all?

If people have a mericlone but no way to identify it, they think they have a unique plant. It's impossible to know how many different mericlones of this breeding exist because no record of these things exist. The only way to know is if the mericloner gives his batch a clonal name as Frank Smith correctly did. It's really a hopeless situation.

So when you say a vendor has 4 mericlones available, it isn't possible to establish that unless he knows the mericloner. If he got any kind of division (mericlone included) of plants with different clonal names, but just unidentified individuals from a mericlone batch, he has just plants with 4 different names that might be identical. To call this a disaster of record keeping is an understatement.

[smweaver]

Beautiful blooms, and the plant looks really at home on the driftwood. If I lived in an environment that was conducive to this method of growing, I would very much enjoy transferring my cattleyas to mounts. The extensive root growth on your plant is quite attractive.

[tucker85]

Originally Posted by goodgollymissmolly

There are only two AOS awards to C. Crystelle Smith 'Gold Throat'. Both are Brooke's.

But you make a valid point about C or Lc or Sc Crystelle Smith. Now my point is even more important. Are there 20 (I use your number) individual mericlones of beaufort x loddigesii (Crystelle Smith) out there or are these other awards made as individual clones when in fact they are not individual at all?

If people have a mericlone but no way to identify it, they think they have a unique plant. It's impossible to know how many different mericlones of this breeding exist because no record of these things exist. The only way to know is if the mericloner gives his batch a clonal name as Frank Smith correctly did. It's really a hopeless situation.

So when you say a vendor has 4 mericlones available, it isn't possible to establish that unless he knows the mericloner. If he got any kind of division (mericlone included) of plants with different clonal names, but just unidentified individuals from a mericlone batch, he has just plants with 4 different names that might be identical. To call this a disaster of record keeping is an understatement.

I'm sorry, I guess I'm missing your point. When you say 'Both are Brooke's' do you mean that these were her awards? The awards are registered to Jim and Annette Lurton. My plant is a C. Crystelle Smith 'Gold Throat' AM/AOS. I assume that it's the same mericlone as Brooke's although I only have the vendor's word on the name of the plant. I didn't mean that this mericlone has 25 awards. There are 25 awards listed for various clonal names of C. Crystelle Smith. I've seen pictures of several of them and some are quite different than 'Gold Throat'.

[goodgollymissmolly]

"Both are Brooke's' do you mean that these were her awards? "

Yes, and I think that's what I said:

"There are only two AOS awards to C. Crystelle Smith 'Gold Throat'. Both are Brooke's."

Perhaps that would have been clearer had I ended the sentence with the word "awards".

[sthh]

This is my favourite type of pastel colouring.