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Originally Posted by SaraJean
May be a silly question but how does one go about reaserching the lineage of specific colonies of walkerianas?
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This is not always a simple matter because getting accurate info about the lineage of a plant is not always possible. Often, it is not fully known even by those who were involved in breeding within the lineage. Until just recently, for example, those who were using 'Pendentive' as a parent believed it was a pure walkerianaa because the AOS awarded it as such.
Cattleya dolosa was named as a species by Reichenbach in 1876. Although it evidently originates as a natural hybrid between walkeriana and loddigesii or possibly harrisoniana, it is classified as a species because it is genetically stabile after multiple generations, and reproduces in uniform populations.
But due to natural variations within the species, or from one population to another, dolosas are not always entirely distinct from their ancestors. Some dolosa flowers resemble loddigesii closely enough, especially in the labella, that they are obviouly not walkerianas, but some are virtually indisinguishable from walkerianas, at least at a glance.
And C. dolosa is usually bifoliate with elongated pseudobulbs and leaves like loddigesii, but sometimes they have a walkeriana growth habit and can be mistaken for walkeriana, especially if the flowers are also similar.
Fragrance is one characteristic that can often differentiate a dolosa or other walkeriana hybrid from a pure walkeriana, even when they look alike. Some dolosas have a sweet fragrance, some have a sweet, fruity fragrance, and some have a fragrance with sort of a sour note, but they tend to lack the complexity of the walkeriana fragrance.
And it's a little off that point, but C. walkeriana 'The Chairman' AM/AOS, which is actually an unintentional hybrid from a cross between C. dolosa 'Pendentive' and C. walkeriana 'Tokyo No. 1,' has an interesting fragrance and an unusual habit of emitting it. Maybe because it has more walkeriana in it, being a dolosa x walkeriana, it does have the typical walkeriana scent. And it pumps out this fragrance all day long, from morning until evening. And then the fragrance changes to the slightly sour dolosa scent, which lasts throughout the evening.
it's rare, but possible, so I have heard, for a C. dolosa to bloom from a flowering growth like C. walkeriana does. After being bred back with walkeriana a time or two, it's more common. On the other hand, even if a walkeriana blooms from the apex of a maturing pseudobulb rather than from a flowering growth, this does not mean that it is not the pure species, as some people believe. The pure species blooms both ways.
The best we can do without having complete information on a walkeriana's lineage, is to study the plant -- the form of its leaves, pseudobulbs, and flowers, and its fragrance, and compare them with the known characteristics of the species within the parameters of normal variation. Not always foolproof as the AOS demonstrated, but this is what the experts do, and it usually leads them to the right conclusion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by smweaver
"...which are now known to be not pure walkerianas. 'Dayane Wenzel,' 'Estrela da Colina,' and 'The Chairman' are three examples that come to mind."
Really? All three of these are hybrids? Ugh... I have several walkeriana crosses with at least one or more of these three clones listed as parents. I didn't realize that they are not the true species. This is a little disappointing to find out since I wasn't interested in acquiring (even, in the case of these three clones, very attractive) hybrids. But thank you (I think) for pointing this out.
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Yeah, I was a bit disappointed to learn about this also. I had actually read about the parentage of 'Estrela da Colina' and Dayane Wenzel' a few years earlier in a little article or extract by Charles Keller, Rio de Janeiro. He explained that they are siblings from the same cross between an unnamed selfing of 'Orchidglade' and a C. walkeriana v. tipo.
Most of the breeding of 'Orchidglade' and its selfings that I have read about was to obtain alba walkerianas, so I guess there are more albas that are not pure walkeraians than tipos as a result of this breeding.
On the bright side, 'Estrela da Colina' and Dayane Wenzel' (moreso than 'The Chairman') have been good parents combined with pure walkerianas for producing some plants with excellent flowers. These offspring are not pure walkerianas either, but they are more pure than the hybrid parents are. If bred again with more walkerianas, the offspring will be even closer to pure. And how pure is a pure walkeriana anyway? They are related to loddigesii to begin with and apparently have a common ancestry at some point in the past.
I have a (still unbloomed) seedling that is a cross between C. walkeriana 'Feiticeira' and 'Dayane Wenzel.' Since 'Feiticeira' is known as a poor parent due to its mysterious genetic instability, I'm thinking that the introduction of a little hybridization will be an interesting observation. Maybe the result will be something nice.
Walkeriana 'pendentive'
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