P. hainanensis? - Orchid Board

bethmarie · #1 08-19-2012, 01:10 AM

I'd love to find and grow a Phal. like the one in this photo, but I'm not sure exactly what it is. Haven't seen these colors on phal flowers before... has anyone else?

naoki · #2 08-19-2012, 02:16 AM

This group of plants are pretty difficult to identify, and a lot of times they are misidentified. Also, they are supposed to have fairly high intra-specific variation, which also make the identification by morphology more difficult. So I can't identify it from the photo, but P. braceana generally has that color. P. stobartiana is also green. I think P. hainanensis is gnerally more pinkish, but I have seen some photos with greenish flower. This group includes P. braceana, P. hainanensis, P. honghenensis, P. stobartiana, and P. wilsonii.

goodgollymissmolly · #3 08-19-2012, 07:00 AM

naoki is correct in that the identification of these subgenus Apyhyllae plants are confused and confusing. I expect they will continue to be in flux for a while. The major problem stems from their location in southern China.... for example hainanensis is from Hainan Island in the South China Sea. Chinese taxonomist FY Liu described some of these without knowing their exact location, no herbarium specimens, no color in the description, and little exposure to existing western taxonomy. She apparently had some photos that have just been found by western taxonomists. The Dec 2010 Orchids magazine has an article by Stig Dalstrom and Paul Omerod that is the latest accepted thinking on the subject.

From that article (and now accepted by KEW), we have the following information:

The picture you show above is almost certainly stobartiana based on the green color.

hainanensis is rusty purple (pic in article).

The pink flowers are wilsonii....including the five pictures in Christenson's book labeled honghenensis and the two pictures labeled hainanensis.

braceana is now considered a synonym of taenialis.

I have not attempted to address all the issues from the article, but for now KEW (and thus AOS) follow the Dalstrom/Omerod concepts.

naoki · #4 08-19-2012, 03:41 PM

Thank you for an updated info! I have only P. wilsonii, and I'd like to get others. Do you (or anyone) know a good source of the species in this group? From searching on google, I think Louisiana Orchids Connection and Paramount Orchids (Canada) may have some of these.

goodgollymissmolly · #5 08-19-2012, 05:39 PM

We have taenialis (pictured below), wilsonii (with an HCC), stobartiana, and finleyi (formerly known as minus (nomen illeg.)). I thought we had honghenensis and hainanensis, but with this new information (Dec 2010 Orchids) both were incorrectly identified.

There really is no place to consistently get these unusual Phal species right now that I know about. LOC is a good place to try as are Normans and Big Leaf. You just have to watch constantly and buy when you see them. We have 51 of the 61 species and I would like to get the remainder of those that are legal (all are not).

We are selfing ours as quickly as possible, but it will be at least 18 months before having anything large enough to spread around. I hate flasking anyway so I just have force myself to do it. It's really boring as heck.

Phal taenialis (braceana) 'Highjack' AM-CCM-AOS JCL_0664 by kentucky4, on Flickrfor

AnonYMouse · #6 08-19-2012, 05:55 PM

Wow, pretty. I can almost see myself getting back into phals

bethmarie · #7 08-19-2012, 06:34 PM

Thank you miss molly and naoki for the detailed information. I'm new to the board, and am happy to be part of it. It's great to have a place to get answers to orchid questions.

naoki · #8 08-20-2012, 02:41 AM

Very nice. I would be interested if you get seedlings from your crosses! Just curious, what are the 10 more species you are looking for?

goodgollymissmolly · #9 08-20-2012, 06:56 AM

Do not have:

mysorensis
buysonniana
regneiriana
honghenensis
natmataungensis
gibbosa
thailandica
luteola
reichenbachiana
robinsonii

Some of these are not legal in the US, but I am not certain of the exact ones.

I don't list hainanensis because it is currently considered a synonym of stobartiana.

In my opinion the hardest plant to find in commerce correctly identified is mariae. Some of them are bastianii and a whole lot appear to be the hybrid Lovely Marie (mariae x bastianii).

Undoubtedly there will be some changes to come in the taxonomy of the genus because the Aphyllae subgenus still is not totally stable nomenclature wise.

Luckily I was recently able to get a replacement for my finleyi (minus) which departed to parts unknown.

naoki · #10 08-20-2012, 03:41 PM

Yeah, these are difficult to find. Does a real P. robinsonii even exist in cultivation? I think LOC had P. reichenbachiana recently. I'm not sure if it is correctly identified. I haven't heard of P. regneiriana, and google can't find it neither. Is it something really new?

I thought that all Phals are in Appendix 2, not App. 1. There are a lot of Paphs which is illegal in the US because of the weird interpretation of CITES. I don't think it really helps conservation for plants. So it's easier to import.