Species -vs- Hybrid?
 

I have read multiple threads vaguely mentioning characteristics between "species" and "hybrids".

I was wondering if someone could be more specific? Are there Pro's and Con's? Are there characteristics that one enjoys over another? How can you tell by the label, the difference between one and another?

Thank you for helping me to understand this better! :bowing

The hybrids are sometimes thought to have more vigor than many species and often combine good qualities from both parents. They are often bred for larger flatter flowers, more temperature tolerance etc. The species are the natural ones that were taken from the wild and bred with other species to produce the many hybrids we have these days. They can sometimes be a little harder to grow because they may come from a specific region and need those requirements to grow well. by combining a cool grower with a warm grower for example, you often get an intermediate hybrid that is not so picky. Having said that many species are wonderful and not hard to grow at all.

The species are listed with a small letter at the start of their name whereas the hybrids use a capital letter. So C. percivaliana is a species and Lc. Canhamiana is a hybrid made from crossing 2 or more species.

I hope that helps and I'm sure others can add more info.

Hybrids are bred for vigor, year round blooming or having multiple blooms, smaller and maybe more of those blooms, or larger with less blooms, they are bred to blend colors and to cancel others out, to accentuate a shape or to fuse a palette of color and patterns. Breed in spots and cut out the stripes etc etc. Short Cool growing and tall warm growing plants are crossed with each other to give you medium growing plants that are sometimes more compact and take up less space and are easier to grow in the home environment. Where ever our homes are anyway.
the orchid world is just about endless when you figure in hybrids and what they have done with them over the years.
which leads to the purity of a species. you accept them for what they are and are not. you learn how to grow them rather than just keep them alive. they seem to deserve more pride in growing. You cant DNA test a hybrid and figure out what it is exactly, you can always test a species to be true or false. And why names are changing in the species world leading to hybrid names being changed is due to DNA and species testing.
which ever you choose I don't see them as having pros and cons. I just view them differently in how you have to approach them. you can manipulate either a hybrid or a species given a consistent environment and time. I have both and enjoy them just the same but on the other hand I find more pride in my species that do well bec people always say they are harder to grow :biggrin:

This is a very good discussion. I have recently become a Neofinetia fanatic. This branch of orchidom is very specific of its plant being species. It seems very rare to get plants from two different named Neofinetia and when one is available it doesn't seem to be as expensive as either parent. I suppose that is more of a tradition and how it is done that dictates how desirable a species Neofinetia is versus a hybrid. Furthermore, as tradition dictates value, it also enables owners to compare plants that they have with each other now, but also with past Neofinetia owners.

Thank you all so much! That was enlightening! I'll assume the species have been around for many thousands of years....and evolved...whereas a "hybrid" may be only 20 years old? (Due to recent creation and/or techniques improving)

THAT said....I see that quite a few people are interested in pollinating, flasking, crossing. Doesn't that in itself somewhat contaminate the work of the original breeder and/or lend to many hybrids who don't even have a name?

Back in the early days that is how hybridizing orchids came about. Orchid growers were experimenting and trying to improve on the characteristics of the parents. Anyone can register their new cross so long as someone else hasn't already done so. Until then, yes it remains un-named! That's one reason why we have some NOID orchids. However you can make a cross and grow and show it and keep track of its parents but not name it. Then if you win an award, it would have to be named to be entered into the AOS records and it would need a clonal name as well.

Not necessarily. Species is a rank of classification given to a group of plants that, in the wild, can maintain a stable set of characteristics because there is little/no hybridisation with plants from different groups that might otherwise introduce new characteristics into that group of plants (ie gene flow). When we take any plant from that species and bring it into cultivation it is still classified within that same species. There can be a lot of variation within the characteristics that define a single species and, as humans love to tweak nature to 'make it better', orchid breeders often cross orchids within a species to select some of the more desirable traits. So long as the breeder uses plants classed as the same species (intraspecific hybridisation) the resulting seedlings are still classified as belonging to the same species as the parents even if they look nothing like the plants you'd find in the wild. Actually many of the more popular species in cultivation these days look nothing like typical wild examples of the species.

The term hybrid usually refers to interspecific hybrids which are produced by crossing parents of different species. However, the defining hybrids as artificial and species as natural is a dubious distinction at best. Most people growing the species Catts, Phals, Cyms, Paphs etc probably have a good proportion of plants in their collection that are as heavily hybridised as the average hybrid!

In a way, yes, but the point is to improve on the plants produced by the original breeder. Granted some rank amateurs cross plants willy nilly without thinking about what they're trying to achieve with the cross and their results will ultimately reflect this but good breeders have a carefully planned out strategy for breeding plants with the traits they want. I guess experience helps you find out who is worth watching and buying from.

So long as the names of the parents are known the hybrids can be registered and, even if the breeder decides not to initially register it, any further hybrids using those plants can be named with the string of parents that produced the cross, ie A x (B x C), until a seedling is produced that makes registering all of the crosses in the seedling's parentage worth while. It's only when the names of an orchid's parents are not known (ie a NOID) you get problems with questionable names.

The parents of Neofinetia falcata seedlings are just as hybridised and tweaked as the seedlings. The reason for the decreased price for the seedlings is that the parents have proved themselves to be good plants and are therefore a more desirable. Seedlings are still somewhat of a crapshoot as to whether they'll be any good or not so they can't command as high a price. It's the same as trying to buy a division of any awarded stud plant from a breeder vs a seedling from that plant.

Dog (canis familiaris) - species
Gray wolf (canis lupus) - species

The resulting progeny of a crossing of the two - (wolf-dog) hybrid.

Hybrids do occur naturally in some instances - including some orchids.

Growing species orchids can also mean that you would have to wait for a plant to go through an annual cycle to get a bloom, but many hybrids just keep on blooming, without regard to their parents natural cycles. Especially in intergenerics. I am a species grower. There are times when I will get a flush of flowers and times when there is hardly anything blooming.

Natural hybrids do occur and once in a while will also lead to speciation-by-hybridization, which then makes the evolutionary tree not strictly splitting, but with some meshwork (reticulate evolution). VERY difficult to prove, though!

Re combining the terms "hybrid" and "vigor", this may lead to some confusion. In genetics the term "hybrid vigor" = heterosis refers to crossing two strongly inbred lineages of the *same* species, and the resultant offspring have greater fitness (better growth/survival and/or better reproductive output). Inbred lines show inbreeding depression, which can be an issue in line-breeding. To remove the inbreeding depression, a breeder may chose to put in some fresh "blood" into the plant line by crossing it with a plant from a different line of the same species.

Nowadays, mericloning (tissue culture of meristematic tissue ~ stem cells of plants) can overcome the limitation of line breeding.

Although hybrids may have better performance in human culture, it does not mean that they are superior overall. Species have evolved over long times to perform optimally in their native habitat, and have maximized "fitness" (lifetime reproductive success: can be expressed mathematically as lx x mx x e^-rt = survival probability at time x times reproductive output at time x times Euler's number (e) to the power of the intrinsic growth rate of the species). Most hybrids will fare worse in nature than the species over evolutionary time. Hybrids may be more tolerant of human abuse, but I don't see that as a justification for abusing our plants. Rather provide the right environment for the species, and they will thrive.

Obviously, I'm a species grower.

To some degree, in certain contexts. It still has it's own limitations and problems.

species offer a botanical value that hybrids lacks, of course, hybrids (in most cases) do have a higher ornamental value.

natural hybrids, are not that hard to come by , given that 2 different species have a blooming season and distribution that overlaps. (C. gravesiana is a clear example). being a successful (natural) hybrid requires the presence of a pollinator that could be attracted to the resulting flower.

exceptional species are present in nature , keep in mind that pollinators does not differentiate between exception or normal flowers they are all the same for them, some wild collected exceptional plants, are still top of the line, meaning that in some cases not even man has been able to produce better than some of the original parents used. WHEN you pollinate 2 exceptional plants , you are also pollinating all the parents in the background for each parent so chances are still slim to get something better. the only way is to keep "rolling the dice" and be lucky, chances are you will not get something better.

flowers for the plant are not meant as a "thank you for growing me", and "here is my present to you" but an effort to reproduce themselves. (it is still a reward for us who admire their complexity and beauty)

for nature standards, a plant that cannot reproduce itself using natural means , are simply a fail, and natural selection will eventually eliminate them because its inability to reproduce itself, (still their are pretty and should always be admired )

orchid species (for me) are in the culprit of plant evolution, they adapted and changed to survive and thrive, my admiration for nature is what makes me grow species over the more "showy hybrids" they might be more challenging, but they are also more rewarding. (for me)

Cheers!

Antonio.

I tend not to think in terms of hybrids being easier to grow and species being harder to grow. I think that's just the most incorrect way of looking at things.

I know of plenty of species orchids that are so sturdy, only the worst possible mistake or neglect will kill them off.

I would more accurately say that some species are difficult to grow because of the environmental climate of their place of origin, while other species are very hardy due to the environmental climate of their place of origin.

Orchids are partially the products of the environments they have adapted to, therefore, hardiness of an orchid can be somewhat relative.

I have both species and hybrids, but my plants are mostly species.

Hmmmm
 

I don't necessarily have a philosophical preference to species over hybrids; I tend to buy what is pleasing to my eye, and species for me, are more aesthetically pleasing than most hybrids.

I grow warm-hot growers, and, although I love a bit of floof in my orchids, I INTENSELY DISLIKE overly floofy orchids. I also INTENSELY DISLIKE splash patterns, or sherbert-colored blooms. Most of the Catt hybrids I see nowadays fall into the over-floof, sherbert colored, or splash pattern category. Some of them are so ruffled (at least to me) that it doesn't even look like an orchid bloom.

Species, while complex blooms, tend to have "cleaner lines," and purer colors. I also LOVE the old-timey Cattleyas for this reason. And, while these are still somewhat floofy, they still are classics-sort of like that perfect white-tailored shirt that makes everyone look good. Even my schomburgkias with the "corkscrew curls" as I like to call them, have very clean lines.

My eyes just naturally prefer these shapes and colors over most of the new stuff.

I kill NoID phals but my species are doing okay.

I, too, have mostly species (excepting catts) for their looks, more exotic IMO.

I have both species and hybrids...whatever catches my eye. I haven't really found species more difficult to grow. Some species do have a set pattern and rest period but at least one can look them up and have a guideline. I think being raised in captivity makes many plants much more adaptable than those raised in their natural environment.
I seem to have mostly species, but not by design. I don't think it matters too much. I buy for fragrance and what seems beautiful to me.

I am a complete novice but I have an equestris and a Mannii and I have had the best luck with them than any of my hybrids. Could be that those two are just easy to grow which is what I am thinking. I also just got a villosum.

I also don't like the splash colors not sure why as I don't mind some frill.