tropicals crossed with hardy slippers?
 

does anyone know if a hardy slipper has ever been crossed with a tropical slipper?

The PhragWeb lists seven registered Phragmipaphium hybrids, but no available photos. Not much done perhaps because of genetic incompatability and/or these hybrids turned out to be sterile www.phragweb.info

Phragmipaphium is a cross between two tropical slipper genera (Paph x Phrag), and I don't believe any have actually been exhibited, so their existence is questionable. Photos that I have seen look like pure Paphs.

As for hardy x tropical (as in Cyp x Paph, Cyp x Phrag, etc.) I have never heard of it, and seriously doubt it is possible to do.

My best guess is that it has been tried.
But I have not heard of any sucessful hybrids of tropical slippers crossed with hardy ones.

here are some of the Phragmipaphium photos:

enbexmalipo.html
PhragWeb - Phragmipaphium - Hybrids - Display Photo.

however, hardly one is convinced these are real hybrids between both Phrag and Paph.... Phragmipaphium turns out to be like alliens: everybody speaks about them, and some are convinced they are real, but nobody has been able to prove their existence...


as per Paph/Phrag x Cyp.. as Fren said, I am quite sure it has been tried... however... any success out there? Don't think so.... but.... go ahead, if nobody tries nobody will have success ever... :)

I can't help but wonder why slippers are genetically incompatible. You would think that paphs and phrags would form viable hybrids, but they don't, from what I hear.

Maybe other slipper crosses are possible (Selenipedium x Mexipedium, Mexipedium x Cypripedium, etc).

Whoever manages to pull off these crosses will become famous in the orchid world, and I'll bet that the hybrids would cost a fortune.

Here are some crosses I think would look awesome:

Paph. malipoense x Cyp. japonicum (would this one be called a Cypripaphium?)
Paph. sanderianum x Phrag. caudatum
Cyp. reginae x Phrag. kovachii
Mexipedium xerophyticum x Cyp. calceolus (Cyprimexium or Mexicyprium LOL)
Cyp. calceolus x Phrag. besseae (Cypriphragmium/Phragmicyprium)
Cyp. parviflorum x Paph. armeniacum

:)

It's partly a chromosome problem..if the number of chromsomes don't match you get all sorts of weird stuff happening with unmatched chromosomes which stops hybridization from happening. Is there a master list of paph/phrag chromosome counts for each species? That would be a good place to start.

I wonder if anyone has ever tried Selenipedium x Cypripedium. That seems like the most likely chance of success to me.

I dont know I was asking because I love th ehardy slippers and wondered if it had been done ....think it would be a awesome cross to see and lol if they turned out hadry whoo hoo look out people would be growing them all over ...know I would.

the cyprepediodeae are OLD. They are global in distribution, which suggests relatively stable and separate populations on the separate continents for some time. We're talking evolution before the breakup of pangea, nevermind laurasia and gondwana. Looking at the history of this subfamily, you can trace the geologic history of the world. Common ancestors split from each other twice. Once when Paph and phrag ancestors split when suth america moved away from asia/africa, and again when european, asian, and north american cyps were separated by the atlantic. Eventually the land bridge of Mesoamerica came into place and then for a while one between russia and america. So the subfamily formed early enough to already be branching toward the Paph/phrag clade and the cyps before south america moved away from africa/asia. ANd then there are the south american cyp-like things...selenipedium....Isolation of basically root paph-like genes and asian cyp-like genes....

Genotypes written in the morphology....

Handy, the early evolution. Much more stabe than the new world subfamilies, which are as we speak in an evolutionary explosion. (i imagine that would be why all the cattleya relatives are so close genetically)

-Cj