Van. Georgia Peach x V. falcata
 

I could have introduced this in the Vanda forum, but since it is more than 50% falcata, I am starting here.

For the past year or so, this mini Vandaceous has been available from Hawaii. The full parentage is:

([{Rhy. coelestis x V. falcata} x V. vietnamica] x V. falcata, so it is 5/8s falcata. I sold one in bud last year, and buyer sent me a photo; it was out of focus, but the color was clearly reddish pink.

I have now bloomed 2 more, and the color range is apparently very broad. We don't know:

• Whether the Rhy. coelestis was blue or pink.
• Whether the first falcata was white or had some magenta (from a 'Shu-Ten-Nou' or similar).
• Vietnamica is obviously green, but that is followed by unceratinty about the second falcata.

However it got there, the soft pink is beautiful. With that much falcata in its ancestry, I'm guessing that it is quite cold-tolerant in spite of the Rhy coelestis, that it is happy in a wide range of temperatures.

Actually, the 'warm' ingredient is the vietnamica. But, they are doing very well in my greenhouse, where thermostat is set at 55F, but it can drop a little lower on a very cold night.

Pardon my ignorance, but it seems "Georgia Peach" is a fairly common cultivar name for Neos/Vanda hybrids. Or at least from looking around at online stores.

Is there a reason for that?

You might be confusing 'Grex name' with 'Cultivar name'.

Cultivar names are assigned by growers to their individual plants. These names are not recorded anywhere, unless the plant earns an AOS quality or cultural award.

Grex names are registered with the RHS in the UK. Once registered, it applies to all plants of this cross, as well as the reciprocal cross. In this case:
Van. Lou Sneary x V. vietnamica = Van. Georgia Peach
V. vietnamica x Van. Lou Sneary = Van. Georgia Peach

Georgia Peach is obviously a commonly used term in GA, but it has only been registered 3 times with the RHS, once each for:

Rhyncattleanthe
Rhyncholaeliocattleya
Vandachostylis

Ah, so "grex" could be described as "eh, looks appearance-wise and genetically close enough?"

Grex is the name of a cross from two defined parents, no matter which is the pollen or pod parent. Vanda Rothschildiana is the grex name for V. coerulea x V. sanderiana, no matter which is pollen or pod parent.

It isn't a function of appearance, but ancestry. Most primary hybrids (between two species) have very similar progeny. More complex hybrids often have highly variable offspring.

Ah okay. That makes sense.

And Vandachostylis is intergeneric because Rhynchostylis is not technically in the Vanda genera?

I think that Rhynchostylis is still considered a separate genus. This week, anyway... Clearly these species are closely related enough to breed. The decisions on where to draw the lines between genera based on their DNA (and their "relatedness" ) gets down into the scientific weeds. There have been many changes in the last few years. As new information is determined, the science has to follow. It drives us in the horticultural world crazy, but it is fundamental in science to follow the data - which evolves as new analytical technology develops.

Neither "genus" nor "species" are inherent characteristics of an organism. Nature is messy, and these (and other taxonomic parameters) are human attempts to describe relationships. Even at the species level, there is natural variation between individuals. When do those "varieties" become separate enough to become separate species? Example at the species level would be Miltonia spactabiis var. moreliana. It is now considered to be a distinct species, Miltonia moreliana. You will see the plants labeled both ways... few people change their tags when the accepted scientific labels change.

To look up a species, the database of names kept by Kew Gardens in the UK is the authority that AOS follows. It lists (sometimes) as synonyms other names that a species may have been known by. But there are other scientific publications that still may differ. IOSPE attempts to keep up with the various references where nomenclature is published.

What exactly determines what can be breed without having to break out a lab kit and a sterile environment?

Because, looking around the internet, I see there's this distinct (or what I think is distinct) intergeneric plant:

Papilionanda Little Blossom (Neofinetia falcata x Papilionanthe Miss Joaquim) - OrchidWeb

So Neofinetia (Vanda) and Papilionanthe are possible.

Is it basically a "spread pollen around and see what you get/if you get anything" kind of deal with trying to make intergeneric orchids?