Nancy Mountford, Large-lipped Phals, Orchidom, Orquídeas Dominicana

[estación seca]

Nancy Mountford of Orquídeas Dominicana spoke tonight to the Desert Valley Orchid Society on large-lipped Phalaenopsis. I took some notes. If there are any errors, they are due to my mistakes, and I would appreciate corrections.

Nancy lives south of Baltimore in a home with a greenhouse and part of the sunroom converted to orchid growing. She has made close to 10,000 orchid crosses and kept records of them.

Her business, Orquídeas Dominicana, is not far from Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, which occupies the eastern 2/3 of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. The western 1/3 of Hispaniola is the nation of Haiti.

The great majority of the plants produced by Orchidom are sold, in spike or flower, in the Dominican Republic, with some shipped to other Caribbean islands. Aside from Phals, they produce many equitant Oncidium hybrids (Tolumnias), Dendrobiums and Cattleyas. The Tolumnia parent stock was acquired from Hawaiian breeders closing their businesses.

It wasn't the kind of talk that lends itself to note-taking, so I only have a few things to report. It was mostly photos of generations of hybrids from the earliest to the most current. Yes, she brought plants to sell, and many of us bought seedlings of unflowered large lip crosses.

She began by showing the first and only Phalaenopsis plant in which the big-lipped mutation occurred de novo, Phalaenopsis World Class 'Big Foot'. This was from Carmela Orchids. It is thought this represents a new genetic mutation, never before seen, especially because the trait is passed to descendants.

Various orchid breeders seized on this plant for their breeding programs. Three resultant grexes have become excellent parents of other crosses. I believe two of these three grexes are Phal. Sogo Yukidian and Phal. Yu Pin Fireworks. I didn't get the third.

When crossing P. World Class 'Big Foot' with other Phals, about 30% of the progeny have large lips. Crossing large-lip descendants of World Class 'Big Foot' with each other results in higher and higher percentages of plants with large lips in the resultant seedlings. Currently, crossing of large-lip plants with other large-lip plants yields nearly 70% large-lip progeny.

The size of the large lip varies from plant to plant. Some appear to be almost like petals. Some have curled fangs, and others don't. Some have narrow linear protuberances at the base of the lips.

She showed the results of crossing World Class 'Big Foot' with P. amabilis, and various hybrids, to produce plants of the different kinds of Phal often seen - white, pink, purple, spotted, striped, harlequin. There are large-lipped descendants of the yellow/orange/tan Surf Song. Achieving a striped or spotted large lip has been challenging, but such plants are now being produced. She began with the first generation of crosses, and showed plants from subsequent generations.

At the end she showed a Phalaenopsis flower with three identical sepals and three identical big lips. It didn't look like any kind of orchid I have seen, but it was pretty.

She brought seedlings to sell from about a dozen new crosses. I bought:

NMX6074 Phal. Leopard Prince 'New Season Red' x Phal. Yu Pin Fireworks 'Longwood'

NMX6260 Phal. (Lioulin Peoker x Sunrise Star) 'OX 15 25' x Phal. Yu Pin Fireworks 'Longwood'

NMX6339 Phal. (Chingruey's Gold x Sogo Yukidian) 'JK04' x Phal. Yu Pin Fireworks 'NCOS White'

NMX6377 Phal. Yu Pin Fireworks 'NCOS White' x Phal. John Naugle 'K-S' AM/AOS