Guarianthe skinneri vs patinii, distinguishing characteristics?
 

What characteristics can be used to distinguish between Guarianthe skinneri and patinii?

skinneri blooms in the spring, patinii in the fall.

Assuming that patinii is a synonym of deckeri, msaar is correct. Timing of the flowers is the only difference between the patinii/deckeri and skinneri. There might be some geographic differences as well, but that doesn't do an American grower much when growing them! I'm not sure if there is any DNA work that has been done.

Orchidwiz shows skinneri and deckeri as the same orchid. Apparently C. deckeri is now considered synonymous with G. skinneri. There's very little information on patinii in Orchidwiz. It only shows a couple of pictures and almost no information. It does show patinii as blooming in the fall and skinneri in the winter/spring. Here's the Baker sheet information on skinneri. There's no Baker sheet on patinii.

ORIGIN/HABITAT: Southern Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. In Costa Rica Cattleya skinneri is one of the most common orchids and has been designated the National Flower. Plants usually grow in wet mountain forests from near sea level to about 4100 ft. (0-1250 m), but they also occur on rocks at higher elevations where rainfall is greater and evaporation is less. -- Source: Charles Baker

Tucker,
The split of deckeri/patinii off of skinneri is fairly recent, so I think OW might be a bit behind on this one. I'm not 100% sure though.

I know that Catt (technically all of these are Guarianthe, not Cattleya) deckeri was described before patinii, so if they are synonyms, the deckeri is the correct name. However, it seems that deckeri may have been described as part of a hybrid swarm (ie. Catt. xguatemalensis) and patinii might have been the description for the fall blooming Catt. skinneri AKA Catt. skinneri var autumnalis AKA Catt. deckeri AKA Catt. patinii.

Confused? Me too! lol

Edit: Here is the source for the preceding paragraph: http://www.lankesteriana.ucr.ac.cr/l...%20Higgins.pdf

And I apologize to David if we have hijacked this thread!! :biggrin:

The Kew Checklist recognizes G. patinii as a valid species, and G. deckeri as a synonym of G. skinneri.

Yes, DNA work has been done and on this basis Dressler created the genus Guarianthe. When he created genus Guarianthe he assigned the following species: aurantiaca, bowringiana, patinii and skinneri.
http://www.lankesteriana.ucr.ac.cr/l...%20Higgins.pdf

Cattleya deckeri is now considered to be a synonym for Guarianthe skinneri. C. deckeri is _not_ a synonym for Guarianthe patinii.

It seems that perhaps some plants that were previously (and curently) sold as C. deckeri (which, if the label were correct, would mean that they should now be labeled Gur. skinneri) were mislabeled and are in fact Guarianthe patinii.

So, back to the orginal question, Guarianthe skinneri and Gur. patinii are currently recognized as separate species. How does one differentiate between them?

And now, for your additional amusement; Santa Barbara Orchid Estate is selling a Cattleya patinii that they describe as a "rare variant of the cattleya skinneri group".
Cattleya patinii at Santa Barbara Orchid Estate

Ah, so OW and Tucker were both correct! This is good to know! It seems that it was actually my knowledge database that needed to be updated.

I think its still just the timing difference of the blooms.

I found this on Google. I think Isurus 79 is absolutely right about the main difference being the blooming season.


Guarianthe patinii
Common Name Patin's Cattleya [French Orchid Collector 1800's]

Found in Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela and Trinidada and Tobago in humid forests at elevations of 30 to 800 meters as a caespitose, small sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with fusiform, furrowed, bifoliate pseudobulbs with elliptic to oblong, fleshy leaves which blooms on a terminal, 3' [7.5 cm] long, erect, few to several [4 to 8] flowered, racemose inflorescence arising on a newly matured psedobulb, subtended by a basal sheath occuring in the fall. The major difference in this species versus Cattleya skinneri is that skinnerii blooms in the spring and has a white tubular base to the lip.

Synonyms Cattleya skinneri var autumnalis Allen 1942; Cattleya skinneri var patinii 1914; Guarianthe patinii (Cogn.) Dressler & W.E. Higgins 2003

Besides differences in the flowering seasons apparantly many if not the majority of the C. patinis collected in the wild have only few flowers, that do not open well and self-pollinate themselves, which makes the flowers wither quickly. For this they are considered less attractive and are seldom collected. But apparently C. patini is widely distributed. And I had the honour to present a better clone (not mine) with some 15 flowers to our local group in december.