Three Spurred Neofinetia Flowers
 

At last! I own a Manjushage. An entire year of waiting and watching and being outbid! Its mine!

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3866/...279121d6_b.jpg
Manjushage 曼珠沙華 by MattWoelfsen, on Flickr

:biggrin:

This has triple spurs? Is that what makes it Manjushage 曼珠沙華? I'm still learning about all the different characteristics of these noble orchids.

Yes, Hiester. Having a three-spur flower verified as a three spur makes it a Manjushage. The irony is this plant may not produce three spurs the next time it blooms. Or it may throw a spike that has a mix of one, two, or three. This feature cannot be bred to be 3-spurred. And that makes each plant unique and highly valued. And worth the wait!

Hmm... interesting. So just taking a wild stab at the logic behind this phenomenon, it sounds as if it might be a group of genetically differentiated chimeric cells which are the cause. Assuming this is the case, then this same mechanism can sometimes be the cause of varying degrees of variegation in plant leaves, as well as oddly differentiated colors in blooms of some examples.

I imagine wringing hands and a maniacal "mwahahaha".

Either that or the plant knows how much Matt bid for the plant & is just doing him a solid :D

Nice snag Matt! Can't wait to see those flowers.

Isn't it annoying when others there keep bidding on YOUR orchid? I know this feeling!

I also think some in question there are dealers. They seem only to bid on orchids, lots of them.

eBay rocks.

Congrats Matt!!!

Anyone that grows Neos should have at least one of these in there collection.

While Manjushage plants are often simply defined as just having three spurs, there are a few other qualifiers too.

I know of at least 5 (possibly 6) plants that create flowers with three spurs.

All images were found through google and are not mine.

Manjushage is the most common. The flowers generally face forward or to the side (as opposed to upwards). Flowers are usually white with maybe the slightest tinge of pink or green. The two additional spurs emerge from the two top inner tepals.

http://www.seedengei.jp/img/manjushage.jpg



Benikanzashi and Hanakanzashi. These might be the same plant, but I'm not sure. I've seen references to both, but I can't tell them apart. These have three spurs on flowers that have the same color as Shutenno flowers. The two additional spurs emerge from the bottom two lateral outer tepals.

http://www.geocities.jp/falcata_fuji...anakanzasi.jpg



Hanamatoi has three spurs on green or white buds that never or rarely fully open. The extra spurs come from the two inner tepals.

http://www.geocities.jp/falcata_fuji...-hanamatoi.jpg



Kintaikan has flowers that have three spurs, with the extra ones coming from the top inner tepals, but those extra spurs are shorter than the main spur. I'm not sure if these flowers open fully or stay closed like the Hanamatoi.

http://www.geocities.jp/falcata_fuji...kan-tubomi.jpg



Tamakouro (or perhaps gyokukouro?) has three spurs but the flowers face upward and the tepals are generally a bit shorter than the Manjushage. The spurs appear from the two upper inner tepals (lip=bottom). (I'm in the process of searching for this for my own collection...)

http://cfile239.uf.daum.net/image/14...4E101BD02AA2C2

Awesome! Thanks for posting the info.

Sent from my Nexus 10

There's an article from Plant Physiology Magazine that describes mutant neofinetia flowers including the three spurred variety. I don't think it quite explains why it happens, but it's still an interesting read. (The 'sam-gak-san' they mention is a manjushage, and the 'ok-hyang-ro' is a Tamakouro)

Mutant Flower Morphologies in the Wind Orchid, a Novel Orchid Model Species


Also, peloria may explain this type of mutation. It happens in other species of plants and it's also an interesting thing to read up about.

Congrats Matt that is a wonderful Neo. Mine is sending out a Keiki. Unreal....enjoy these Neos.

Hakumin! You are FABULOUS! Your work in putting all of these plants together is super! Unfortunately, now I want all those other plants! LOL!

I am going to have to install a special Neofinetia house if I do that...

AnnonYMouse...brn thumbs, trdyl, JMNYC....I could not believe it when the auction ended and I was the high bidder. It felt like I won the lottery.

Thanks to every one for contributing to this thread. With hakumin's info and all of your comments regarding this Manjushage, I wish it was in a separate thread. This data is really very helpful

Matt,
Congrats with your new addition. Hope Kristen can sort out her paperwork soon so mine will arrive too. Your disease is getting to the point of being lethal. Lol!
I hope to get the first draft of my Neo-Base ready somewhere in august and includes all the info I could find anywhere.

Hakumin,
As far as I found out Benikanzashi and Hanakanzashi are two different varieties but the differences are never cited. NWO has them listed as separate varieties.

I totally RELATE!!!!!:biggrin:

These two are available from NWO? Hmmmmm....(I must resist...) sending email to verify NWO has these two plants...(I must resist...resist) :rofl:

Thanks a lot Marc! BTW, can't wait to see your spreadsheet...

As we all know, in these events, resisting is a happily doomed endeavor.:)

Yep, Benikanzashi and Hanakanzashi are on the site !
Not for free though, you'd better resist. Lol!

Also Orchids Ltd. has a Hanakanzashi listed 'buy it now' on ebay with the following note/disclaimer:

Thanks Jayfar.

Together we are slowly getting the knowledge on our babies.

Hi Matt, if a Manjushage blooms with a triple spur, it will always bloom with triple spurs. Unless it is an unconfirmed seedling of a Manjushage selfing or cross.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

And Hakumin, thanks for showing the triple spur upward flowers! I didn't know about it. Also the link to article is offline. Is there another working link?

Leslie


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Here's the article as attachment:

EDIT: Oops. Deems attaching a PDF didn't work. Maybe a size limit?

I don't think you can mate, more to do with OB ensuring it doesn't fall foul of copyright infringements.

That's weird, the link still works on both my computers. Try googling "Plant Physiology Magazine Wind Orchid Flower Mutation" to find it. It comes up when i use that search query

---------- Post added at 09:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:30 PM ----------

Well, the thing with NWO, I've noticed on their site that they have Yoroidoushi and Chousentetsu listed separately, but they're supposed to be the same plant just re-registered with a new name. (Several japanese sources state this as well as Orchids Ltd's page here: https://www.orchidweb.com/products/n...agger~585.html )

Because of that, and the fact that some Japanese sources seem to be unsure which is which, I'm still not ruling out the possibility that it might be two different names for the same plant...

perhaps it could be lengths of the extra spurs that is the difference.

This Hanakanzashi shows exceptionally short extra spurs:

http://blogs.c.yimg.jp/res/blog-0c-3...g_2?1344510593

Leslie, You can download it here, just put it on my Google Drive. https://drive.google.com/folderview?...28&usp=sharing

Cheers,
Marc

---------- Post added at 04:20 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:55 AM ----------

Hakumin,

Its certainly possible what you say about the spur length. Pictures I have seen of Benikanzashi show much longer spurs.

About double spurred and triple spurred varieties. I read on several sites, including Seed Engei, that the first blooms on jong plants could be normal flowers. Could this be the case, becouse the plants are not yet strong enough?

The thing with NWO is probably that Kristen is fairly new to all of this as she promptly took over from Glen.
In my search for different varieties I came and come across many things and it is sometimes very difficult to figure out what is correct and what is not. I'm sure I'm making a lot of mistakes. and then there is an other huge problem. Some use Japanese names, some Korean, which does not make it much easier. I think we all try to do our best to do the right thing and have to help each other where we can. We do not have enough knowledge of Japanese, certainly I don't. And to keep track of all these changes is hard because for us its not a way of life. I don't even think we can join the Japanese Fuukiran Society and if we could, we certainly could not read their correspondence because of the language barrier. I'm shore if we contact Kristen, she would check it out and set things right. On her site there are more things that are not correct but if you mail her she will correct it if necessary.

I know we are all (including me) freaky when it comes to our hobby. So why don't we just help each other.

Firstly, of course we should all help each other. I have experience in both Korean and Japanese, which is why I always try to pipe up when someone has some confusion between names in the two languages. I'm also apparently one of the few who can research these plants in Japanese and I try to post any interesting findings whenever I can.

I'm always up for helping others whenever I can, and of course I get help from others in areas where my knowledge is lacking.

As for the multiple spur flowers, yes, younger plants might get fewer spurs (and other characteristic flowers may show weaker characteristics) than plants that are well established and have multiple growths. An example is my Soubiryu. I got the plant in 2011. the first year, it bloomed with one flower. The second year, with 3 flowers, one of which had only one spur. This year the plant bloomed with 7 flowers and 2 with only one spur. The flowers look better developed each year and I have confirmed on Japanese and Korean websites that after the plant is well established, they rarely get single spurred flowers.

So yes, that hanakanzashi photo that I found might have shorter spurs because of being a younger plant. It would begin to constitute a different plant, I believe if the characteristics stay consistent over time.

I'll be doing more research on the multiple spur varieties on the Japanese and Korean websites soon.

Shall I start a new thread about multi-spur flowers rather than continuing to commandeer this thread?

I think it would be great to have a separate thread of multi-spur Neofinetia flowers. We can always refer back to this one. Maybe I can get Sonya our White Rabbit Supermoderator to excise this part of the thread where we started talking about the Manjushage? I'll PM her and ask.

I think this conversation deserves its own thread. Thank you all for participating in this conversation.

Benikanzashi and Hanakanzashi is the same plant. This was confirmed by Mr. Kasahara, when I spoke to him and Satomi at the Neofinetia judging event in Santa Barbara, last Saturday.

Hakumin,
I didn't want to sound so ungrateful before. I simply wanted to state that Fuukiran is still a mystery for most of us and useful info in English is hard to find. So I"m glad you can help sometimes.
I think an other problem for now and future is the Korean and Japanese naming of different or the same varieties. So far I found over 500 different variety names. This is without the different possible alternate spellings. I'm trying to put a database together and it is proving hard to find out which is which.

It would be wonderful to start a new tread on multispured neo flowers. Thinking of it, a treat on all odd shaped flowers would be useful too.

Matt,
It would be normal for Mansjuhage to be a bigger leaved plant as it seems to be a mutation of the Amami island form.

Jeremia,
If Benikanzashi and Hanakanzashi are the same variety, which can be. Then why are they offered/sold under different names or what really should we call this variety?
Could you find out?

There are probably more varieties around, going under different names. It's all so confusing.

There is a very set method of translating most of the Japanese neo names into Korean and vice versa. It's actually not difficult at all and all you need is a decent Kanji or Hanja dictionary to do the translation, and a basic ability to read the both languages phonetically, you pretty much don't need to be able to understand the words just be able to figure out what they sound like.

99% of all Neo names in Japanese use Kanji, which are Chinese characters. Korean historically uses Chinese characters too, and the difference in Korean and Japanese names, 95 percent of the time is simply the Japanese reading vs. the Japanese reading of those kanji. When written in those chinese characters, the names are often PRECISELY the same in both languages.

The different spellings that you encounter when written into english are all simply different ways people can transcribe Japanese or Korean into English, and this problem occurs not only with Neos but in every aspect of transcription of any language into another.

I admit that there are occasions where the most common name for a plant in Korea is completely different from the most common name for a plant in Japan, but those are exceptionally rare.

Manjushage is one of these. The chinese characters for Manjushage is 曼珠沙華. In korean, this would be pronounced, Manjusahwa. Sometimes the plants ARE called this. Oftentimes though in Korea, the same plants are called Sam-gak-san, which in chinese would be written, 三角山. This in Japanese would be pronounced San-kaku-san.

You might notice that in this case, the reading sounds similar in both languages. This is because both languages are approximating the original old chinese pronunciation of the chinese characters. (all chinese characters used in Japan and Korea are technically loanwords from Han China)

All this said, it may be a tall order for most people not familiar with the languages, the most reliable way to know which plant is which is by reading the Chinese characters of the name. Regardless of the pronunciation, they will be the same in Japanese and Korean nearly 100% of the time. (again, there are exceptions, but rare. The most common exception is changing the grammatical particle, "no" from Japanese (の) to the chinese character (之) in korean versions of chinese names)

Overall, when someone asks me a Korean name for a Japanese neofinetia or vice versa, all I am doing is doing a one to one phonetic transfer of each character between languages, then confirming it in my Korean and Japanese lists of varieties. It takes 2 or 3 minutes at most since I use online dictionaries. Of course there are a few small complexities, especially when converting from korean to japanese (it's easier to transfer from japanese to korean), it's all nothing a little bit of research won't overcome.

Easy for you to ..uh...say! <S> Hakumin what would it take for you to be our official "Vanda Alliance -- Neofinetia Chief Translator? I'll send you an Amami seedling--if that is payment enough?

Hakumin,
I'll keep your interesting notes in mind but since I'm not that good in Asian scripture, maybe I leave it up to you for the moment.

Of what I read from your message, You have a list of both Japanese & Korean variety names?
Would you like to share it?

Unfortunately, encountering different names for the same plant in Japanese is not that uncommon. I'm sure that many of the Japanese growers the american vendors purchase from know that a plant can be named one of two names, but they neglect to mention this to the american vendors. So, if Glenn or Kristen obtains a "Hanakanzashi" from one vendor, and a "Benikanzashi" from another vendor, and they don't realize that they are the same plant, they'll sell them as two different varieties.

As for why there are two different names for two different plants, it could have been a telephone game effect where one person gets a plant from another person and accidentally writes down the name differently. It could also be that one person just changed the name on a whim which while annoying, wouldn't be taboo for a non-registered plant.

I personally think that it was most likely a case where the first person to find that seedling in their flask reported it as one name. A second person later on independently finds a seedling with the same characteristics as the first plant (but not descended from the first plant) so names it similarly to the first plant, but decides to change the name slightly to cover any potential future differences in characteristics.

Names can also change due to registration. One recent example is 緑宝の縞, Ryokuhou-no-shima. When registered, the plant was renamed 緑彩宝, Ryokusaihou. Yet, I find Japanese sellers on the internet still using the old name while others use the new name. In this case, because of registration, I would think that the new name would be considered correct.

In the case of Hanakanzashi and Benikanzashi, given that they are the same plant, but the plant is registered under neither name, it would be perfectly fine to call it one or the other. I would probably stick with the name that the plant was purchased as, however. As there's always a chance that they might not be clones but two different seedlings that happened to appear with the same characteristics.

Two different people called it two different things. Both caught on, maybe one more so than the other (hanakanzashi seems more popular). It's quite common for things to have similar names. In any case, either one is the same plant, triple colored spur.

One should note that Hanakanzashi/Benikanzashi is an incredibly unstable plant. Forming triple spurs does NOT happen often. And when spurs do form, they are generally all weird looking and rarely in the perfect shape as manjushage.
In example, my Hana/Benikanzashi attempted to form spurs. Instead, the spurs stopped growing and even stunted the petals. I ended up with an alien flower. The spurs are those two dots that look like eyes. https://scontent-a-pao.xx.fbcdn.net/...01993156_n.jpg
The following spike from the same plant looks like a normal shutennou flower.

SE had a Hanakanzashi for sale at the SB neo show. It had triple spurs on some flowers on the same spike, others showed no additional spurs. Furthermore, the ones with extra spurs had very short and irregular formed extra spurs. The idea of a colored triple spur is dreamy but the reality is, this plant is of a lack-luster when compared to Manjushage's spurs. We should appreciate it for its weirdness rather than expecting a colored manjushage. :)

Haha,

No need to send me a seedling, I am always happy to provide the service for no compensation. :)

I find all of this quite interesting.
Hakumin and Jeremaiah, What do you think of starting a new tread on this subject as we are straying from the original one.

I said Korean and Japanese lists out of ease, rather than accuracy to be honest. I mainly just use google and search for plants with the particular name that I compiled. If I find more than a few hits from reputable sources, of plants having that name with the same characteristics, I'll call it a correct translation.

I used to have a list of Japanese names but that website is gone now....

Unfortunately there's no single list that I know of that has all the names directly translated.

Please take a look on what I am working on at the moment. If you have the time.
Here are the links:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5q...it?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

I can certainly help with contributing to the Neo Base website when that's available.

As for the google documents, If you'll allow me editing privileges, I can work at filling in the "Korean", "Translation" and "Alternate Spelling" columns and adding two more columns, "Hangul" (Written Korean) "Hiragana" (Phonetic Written Japanese)

PM me if you need my google email address.