What does Japhet mean?

[Optimist]

Hi, I am very interested in large cattleyas now, and I have one that is blooming and has one big bloom per stem. I am looking now for smaller clusters of blooms on a stem. Several smaller flowers per each stem. The word Japhet came up with a sale orchid at Housermans, I have been looking at and thinking of getting as soon as Chicago thaws out. Does Japhet refer to the color, or the habit of having multiples small blooms per stem? Is it the shape of the flower? For instance, this one sale orchid had a longer "trumpet" type shape, and in a way looked more like a daffodil than some other Catts.

I'd like to know the exact definition of Japhet.

[james mickelso]

C. Henrietta Japhet is a cross between C. Loddigesii and C. Eucharis hoping to produce a more compact plant with the requisite white flowers. The idea was to produce white flowers with better substance. The japhets are usually rounder, flatter and heavier. The plants are smaller in stature but good producers. Both parents had nice flowers for the cut flower trade but in a coursage they didn't last long. The japhets last quite a long time as a coursage. And during the heyday of the coursage white stood, and still stands for purity. Look up C. Henrietta Japhet.

[Nexogen]

Japhetic In anthropology it was used in a racial sense for "white people"
From the Hebrew name יֶפֶת (Yefet) meaning “enlarged”

Cattleya Henrietta Japhet “the flower is white and almost as big as the plant”.

[Optimist]

So it pertains to the white dominent color? Thanks.

[PaphMadMan]

It isn't just the color. Cattleya Henrietta Japhet met certain criteria for use as a cut flower or small corsage orchid. Japhet, originally just shorthand for C. Henrietta Japhet, became identified as a commerical type, and could refer to any Cattleya that met the expectations of the type: white, possibly with yellow throat; intermediate size and form (between the large C. labiata/mossiae types and the smaller cluster flowered C. intermedia/loddigesii types); and heavy-textured flowers that are durable for corsages or cut flowers. Almost always white anyway. "Pink Japhet type" would work as a descriptive phrase.

[Optimist]

Actually I like the description. Sort of smaller, sturdier. Makes sense to me.

[Ray]

Don't read too deeply into it. The original cross was named after a woman, Henrietta Japhet. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Optimist]

Thanks everyone. I guess I have lots to learn about orchid terminology, and you guys are a great help!

[james mickelso]

That's true Ray but the cross was made trying to get white flowers with more substance and flatter for the cut flower and coursage industry. All crosses with subsequent C. Henrietta Japhet were loosely called japhets.