Quote:
Originally Posted by Stray59
The first pic in the last two pics you posted is a phalaenopsis X denrobium and it also could have no name - they are also mass bred for the florist industry -
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You can't cross phalaenopsis with dendrobium... the two don't interbreed.
There is a sub-genus of Dendrobiums called Phalanthe and one of the species in that group was (at least in Europe and the USA) named Dendrobium phalaenopsis. This confuses a lot of people but it doesn't mean it's a cross between the genus Dendrobum and the genus Phalaenopsis, it means it's a species of Dendrobium which was named phalaenopsis (probably because it's flowers reminded the people who named it of Phalaenopsis flowers). Note that the species is correctly written with a lowercase p and the Genus with an upper case P.
We often refer to the Den Phals as a group of orchids that is orchids closely related to Dendrobium phalaenopsis, and have most if not all of their ancestry from orchids in the Phalanthe sub-group of Dendrobiums.
The first picture in the last two posted is one of these, a Dendrobium with heavy parentage from the Phalanthe sub-group. What we casually refer to as a Den Phal.
Just as a note, in the Australia/New Zealand region the species Dendrobium phalaenopsis was called Dendrobium biggibum. I have a feeling Europe and the USA have now adopted that name, mainly because it causes less confusion than our original name. I might be wrong on that, but I have a feeling I read that somewhere a couple of years back.