Neofinetia falcata jukai
 

I had been watching Satomi’s eBay listings and just had to have this one. Satomi held the shipping until our weather warmed up, it’s been gawd awful cold and windy. Finally we had a few days of warm weather and this little one arrived safely on Thursday of this week. Today it’s back to winter weather with cold, snow and more wind.

Jukai is a variety of Seikai though not a mutation. The difference between the two plants are Seikai has mud brown roots and stem while Jukai has green roots and stem. Seikai has pink irregular shaped flowers, Jukai has white flowers, same wonky shape. They both have the curvy leaves, look very similar. They are a bean leaf, my favorite of the Neos.

This plant has 6 growths and is a nice size clump. It is smaller in size (leaf span) than my Seikai. It is so cute and a awesome addition to my collection. Here is my new treasure!

That's one cool looking Neo! I love it.

Great new treasure. Can you explain the difference between clones and seed plants? Also are some plants cutting from the parent plant. And does any of this make any difference in the cost of the neofinetia?

Gorgeous little Beauty! :) Love the color of the leaves.

Thank you! I really NEEDED this one, just so cute.

---------- Post added at 10:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:02 PM ----------

Thanks! It really is a neat one, so small! I am not the best at explaining this but I’ll give it a try. As I understand it a clone is made from the new growing tip of a plant. The tip is cut off and used to start new growths. These growths should be the same as the parent plant but sometimes mutations occur. I don’t really understand how the growing tip is processed though. Seed plants are propagated from seed, would take forever! Cuttings, or divisions as most are called I believe is the best chance of getting a plant that is exactly like the parent plant because it IS the parent plant. Divisions are the most pricy. Sometimes when you re-moss a Neo, or repot it, the clump may self divide...a fan may fall off of the main plant or a growth of a few fans may fall away from your parent plant. These have their own roots and can easily be potted up into a new plant.

I have a few single growth Neos or Neos with maybe 3 fans that I’ve purchased from Al’s Orchids. These have all been divisions from his original plants and occurred when he remossed his plants.

I hope that answered your question somewhat, the clone process is more complicated than I explained or than I fully understand. Maybe someone with propagation experience will help with a clearer definition.

---------- Post added at 10:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:22 PM ----------

Thank you! It really is a nice little Neo and smaller in size than I expected. In my opinion, tiny is best! This little jukai is not much larger than my Kuroshinju! It is much smaller than my Seikai.

Thanks Patty that help. I was looking at Japanese Orchids and they list "HIME-SEIKAI is a seedling plant of SEIKAI. Even though they are seedling, all of them have nice flower and grow big as normal SEIKAI. Now Himeseikai is started to consider as SEIKAI itself." Are these plants grown from seed and the same as Seikai as they state or am I not understanding this?

Hime Seikai as I understand is the seedling of Seikai, grown from seed. Not a division from a Seikai but a seedling. Kind of confusing to me as well.

I see you are looking at Japanese Orchids eBay listing, Satomi has interesting descriptions as English is not her first language. She is very nice and helpful, you could ask her anything you are unsure of.

Satomi’s family is Seed Engei in Japan and I believe her father is the head of the Japanese Fukiran Society. Satomi travels to Japan several times per year to bring Neos to the US and sells them on eBay and through a mailing list that she emails each month, sometimes by monthly.

A cute little bugger.

There's actually a lot of misinformation going around about the relation of Seikai to Hime-Seikai and Jukai.

Jukai and Hime-Seikai is actually not officially known to be related to Seikai. The similarity in appearance is not known to be anything beyond coincidence, although of course there are reasonable doubts to that as well. In any case, Jukai and Hime-Seikai are siblings of each other though.

Seikai itself is a very old variety found in the wild over 200 years ago. Seikai is self-sterile and all Seikai are divisions of each other.

Hime-Seikai and Jukai on the other hand were found in Korea among the selfed seedlings of a rather normal looking Japanese wild plant. While Hime-Seikai and Jukai are themselves also self-sterile, there were numerous Hime-Seikai and Jukai offspring in that original selfing of the parent, and it is said that subsequent selfings of that parent plant have resulted in additional Hime-Seikai and Jukai offspring. Among all of the offspring, any of this type that have pigmentation in the stem and root tips are named Hime-Seikai, while any that do not produce any anthocyanin pigmentation are named Jukai.

References for the origin of the variety can be found on the Korean Neofinetia Association official description of Hime-Seikai and Jukai varieties. Both are registered in Korea:

Hime-Seikai: 희청해(姬靑海)
Jukai: 수해(樹海)

Corroboration can also be found in Japanese on Page 203 and 249 in the book:
富貴蘭事典・315種の特徴と楽しみ方
Fukiran Jiten: 315 Shu no Tokucho to Tanoshimikata
Fukiran Encyclopedia: Traits of 315 Varieties and How to Enjoy Them
Published 2004, Kazuhiro Horiuchi and Masaru Horiguchi.

Thanks Hakumin this clarifies the different neofinetias. It is hard for me to understand the listing being a novice.