Oncidium Mariposa question
 

I have a dumb "newby" question. This plant was sold as an Oncidium Mariposa, but I have seen plants with similar flowers called Psychopsis while others have a variety name listed as well. Can somebody clear up this confusing issue for me?

I am sure some more knowledgable members will chime in, but I am pretty sure that Psychopsis used to be included in the Oncidium genus. It has now been moved to the new Psychopsis genus.

Hi Pbphut, Your Psychopsis Mariposa is beautiful!

Kinknstein is correct; the Psychopsis used to be considered an Oncidium, but was moved into its own genus a few years back.

As for your question about variety names, I'm thinking you are either asking about the names in small quotes, or the name following the term "var."

I will try my best to explain both.

For Psychopsis Mariposa (or just about any other orchid), there is the standard color form, that would be simply named Psychopsis Mariposa. There is also the alba form of this plant (I actually have one in my collection); alba being a different color form from the standard without any color pigment except yellow in this case. This would be named Psychopsis Mariposa var. alba (var. is the abbreviation for variety).

If you have a Psychopsis Mariposa that is a clone of either an awarded plant or one that someone cloned without an award, then it will carry the clonal name in small quotes after the plant name, such as in Psychopsis Mariposa 'Jill Sidran' AM/AOS.

To top it all off, you could have an alba form with a clonal name, which could be Psychopsis Mariposa var. alba 'Yellow Giant' HCC/AOS. (I made this last one up to show the example).

I hope this answers your questions without being too confusing. :D

Thank you both, Nick and David for taking the time to answer me. Yes, David, your explanation clears up a lot of the confusion. I wasn't aware that there was a separate genus for the Mariposa, but taking into account the very different nature of the flower, I guess it's not too surprising that it has it's own genus. I will make the correction in my records and we'll go from there.