what are parents of Sc. orange embers?
 

Hi,

Just picked up a Sc. orange embers.

what are the parent plant of this hybrid?

thanks
mike smith

The only Orange Embers in registration is now called Laeliocatanthe (Lcn.) Orange Embers. It would have been called Lc. Orange Embers in the past. I don't think it ever would have been called an Sc.

Lcn. Orange Embers is Lc. Santa Barabra Sunset x Guarianthe aurantiaca. Could this be your plant?

are unregistered hybrids very common?
 

I dont know if that is my plant...I don't think it is.
One of the parent plants in the cross is probably a Sophronitis species, because the plant is very compact.

I bought it from Tom Ritter's greenhouse in Florida. I saw one in bloom while i was there - the flowers look similar in colour to the images of the Lcn. orange embers (as per imagery on a google search) however, i think that the flowers were a bit more dainty.:hmm

I asked the lady who was helping me (Mrs. Ritter? i think) she said Sophronitis - i dont remember if she said cernua or coccinea and she seemed more uncertain of the Cattleya parent.

Are unregistered hybrids very common?

Unregistered hybrids are very common ! And many hybrids are registered decades after they were made. And the name changes in the Catt groups makes it more difficult to keep track of.
I received a mini-catt in 2008 that was labeled Slc Flirtie x Slc Tickety Boo. In 2009 it changed to Lc Flirtie x Guarisophleya Tickety Boo. Now it changed again to C Flirtie x Ctt Tickety Boo and is finally registered as Ctt Kauai Starbright, a cross made in 1982.

Here is the RHS site to look up parentage of orchids:

The International Orchid Register | Royal Horticultural Society

Charlie

More to consider (or confuse you):

How "compact" your plant is may not be a good indicator of its background. If I cross a small plant with a large plant, I will get a whole array of sizes in the offspring. If the small plant is the capsule parent, they are more likely to be smaller on average, but conversely, if it is the pollen parent, in general the plants will be larger, even though it is considered to be the same hybrid.

Adding more to the "who knows" factor:

• S. cernua has an F1 offspring called Sc. Burning Embers (S. cernua x C Lynn Richards). If it has orange flowers (likely), it would be easy for someone to incorrectly remember and document the name as Orange Embers.
• The only registered grex with "orange" in its name is Cattychilis Orange Jem, formerly known as an epiphronitis (Encyclia truncata being reclassified as a psychilis). I would think its lip would come through in its progeny. Got a photo?

Do the same analysis with S. coccinea:

• It has no offspring with "Embers", but three with "Orange": Sc. Orange Flame (x c. Golden Reefs, a "standard"), Sc. Orange Smile (x C. Yellow Fire - very compact), and Ctyh. Orange Stardust (x Cattleychea Red Dancers)

what does F1 offspring mean?
 

thanks for the confusion Ray and Charles!

what does" F1 offspring" mean?

I have no photo yet, but the plant is in sheath...

I will be sure to document flowers when the time comes and post it here. It is entirely likely that it is mislabeled.

Mike Smith

SC Orange Embers
 

Hi Mike,
Did you ever find any more info on your Sc. Orange Embers? I came across your post while searching the web for a picture of Sc. Orange Embers in order to verify the identity of one of my orchids -unsuccessfully. I have a plant that has lost it's tag but I do remember that I purchased it from Ritter's at a show in Clearwater FL in Oct. 2008. I saw Linda (Mrs. Ritter) at a show last weekend and described the plant to her (it is blooming now) and she said it was Slc. Orange Embers - I didn't think to ask her about the parents though, I figured I'd just look it up when I got home. Well, I can't find any Slc OR Sc Orange Ember but it does sound like it may be the same as your plant, it is compact and looks like it may have Sophronitis Coccinea in it. I took it to an orchid society meeting a few nights ago because I remember others buying the same plant that year at our show - Ritter's had a lot of them, they had them at every show that entire season and they were all in 2" plastic vanda baskets with sphagnum moss. People remembered seeing them at the show but nobody present at the meeting had bought one however several very knowledgeable AOS judges surmised that it had S. coccinea in it's background as well as posibly C. aurantiaca among others. Has yours bloomed and do you have pics? I attached a picture of mine to see if it's the same as yours. I guess I'm ok with calling it Sc. Orange Embers even if it's not correct, it's a nice plant and a great bloomer but I don't think I could ever show it as it seems to have some genetic mutations in some of the flowers - missing or distorted lips, petals etc. If it's the same plant, have you noticed anything strange with yours?

I agree with PaphMadMan. I think it has been misnamed and should be Lc. Orange Embers. If you Google that, there are lots of links for it. There is nothing for Sc. Orange Embers.

OrchidWiz shows 3 photos of it and the 1st looks pretty much exactly like yours jen. But there is no sophrontis in its parentage at all. Isn't aurantiaca a fairly compact plant? It looks lovely anyways!

Laeliocatanthe Orange EmbersGenus Laeliocatanthe
Epithet Orange Embers
Synonym Flag This is not a synonym
Synonym Genus Name Laeliocattleya
Registrant Name Santa Barbara
Originator Name Santa Barbara
Date of registration 9/28/1999
Seed parent Pollen parent
Genus Laeliocattleya Guarianthe
Epithet Santa Barbara Sunset aurantiaca


from the RHS. site

Warren

Thanks for the input Silken and Warren. I did consider Lcn. Orange Embers as it is the only Orange Embers that comes up and I agree the first flower shown in OrchidWiz does look a lot like my flowers but the plant itself is nothing like it. The pseudobulbs of Lcn. Orange Embers are much larger and farther apart, my plant is really very small; the largest mature p-bulbs are only 8 mm in diameter and 4-6 cm tall, the leaves are much larger than the bulbs at approx 13 cm long and 2-3 cm wide. The longest flower spike is 10 cm, holding the flowers just slightly below the tips of the leaves. Lcn. Orange Embers holds it's flowers high above the foliage, not down in it like mine. The pseudobulbs of my plant are really packed closely together too, I mis-typed earlier when I said it was in a 2" basket, it is a 4" plastic basket and the plant currently fills only about 2/3 of the basket but there are so many bulbs I can't count them, more than 50, that's where I lost count.
When I look at S coccinea, the plant itself (not the flowers) looks just like a smaller version of my plant and some of my leaves flop over too, like the sophronitis.
I'm sure the plant that the first poster Mike, wrote about is mislabeled, we've established there is no Sc or Slc Orange Ember. I've lost the tag to my plant but I'm pretty sure the origional tag had two names on it - two parents. Linda Ritter told me (16 months after I bought it and based on my description) that my plant is Slc Orange Ember, Mike's plant was labeled Sc Orange Ember and Linda told him one of the parents was S. coccinea. Based on all of that and the resemblance of my plant to S.coccinea and my flowers to those of Lc. Orange Ember, I'm thinking that somebody probably crossed Lc. Orange Ember with S. coccinea and this is the offspring that was just never registered and somewhere along the way got mislabeled (if Mike's plant is the same as mine). I'd like to find some more people who bought these plants from them to see what their tags say.