In an ideal world, this shouldn't even be a legitimate issue.

To get better at micropropagation I've read a LOT of books, essays and researches; and it's a well established thing that cloning a clone is bad practice (at best).

I don't think transparency towards customers is a concern for people who do that.

How would any buyer know? Few vendors sell plants they themselves mericlone.

Agree. However, there are cases where the seller just knows.

For example, I know that my tenant sold a mother division of Rlc. Goldenzelle 'Lemon Chiffon' to Exotic Orchids of Maui. So, when I buy meristems of this plant from EOM, I am confident that they are made from a mother division.

On the other hand, I bought Rth. Psycho Bride from a wholesale production nursery in HI. The flowers were pale yellow. Two years later, the plants coming out of the same nursery had pink flowers.

As I know, F1 stands for "first generation from seed". F2 for "second generation referred to one of the plant granmother or grandad".
Pratical exemple.
A: P. rothschildianum
B: P. micranthum.

F1 is Paphiopedilum Gloria Naugle (cross between P. rothschildianum x P. micrantum), that has intermediate characteristics between the parents.
F2 is, for example, Paphiopedilum Du Motier ( cross between P. Gloria Naugle x P. vietnamense). You can see the strong influence of P. rothschildianum and the weak influence of P. micranthum in the second generation.

Backcross is A crossed with B and the result C again crosse with A or B.
so Paphiopedilum Tristar Red Dragon is a backcross of P. Gloria Naugle with P. rothschialdianum, to improve the influence of P. roth.

For division, in Italy we use D or "divisione", and it's a part of the plant, usually the awarded ones, so the division is EXACTLY the same. The original plant you divide is "motherplant".

Meristem or merclone we usually write M or "mericlone". It's used to multiplicate very fast an awarded plant in huge numbers. For example an awarded Cattleya, you make mericlone to reproduce exactly that Cattleya, but everytime the DNA multiplicates and divides (saying simple..), some mistakes can be made. So the results is not always identical to the mother plant.

That's why the differences in prices and value.
Division is the most desired: EXACTLY the same plant as awarded, so the most expensive.
Mericlone: almost as perfect as divisions, but in huge numbers (thousands..) you can have degeneration of DNA and so of the plant. Rarely the mutations give some better results. Rarely.
Seedling: with no flowers we can expect results similar to parents, better o lower ones. Good luck!

"X self" or autoimpollination usually done with botanical species, should improve some charateristics of the plant.
In tag we use "x s" or "x self".

I like to know this stuff because when buying plants outside Italy, you know what you're buying. Well, more or less :rofl:

Hope it helps

guessing that using F1, F2 etc for mericlones is not "botanically correct"

but it can be useful to denote plants that were cloned from the original divisions, and therefore presumably less likely to harbor (as many) mutations. I know Waldor often advertises F1 mericlones, often very old mericlones of classic catt cultivars (which have since been vegetatively divided and sold).

I think this is useful for those growers/collectors who wish to have plants as close to the original as possible. once you get into clones of clones the nomenclature is less important since by that time people don't care anyway! (or the ones who really do stay away from these)

I suspect this information isn't reported because people who understand the process wouldn't want later generations, due to the frequent mutations encountered.

It seems to me that F designations are more for the breeder to keep track of their lines than they are for buyers to understand anything. If i wanted to start breeding and i crossed two hybrids i own, i would call it F1 knowing that i am ignoring what is probably a long breeding history. Thats why i wouldnt put it on the tag. It would be arbitrary to anyone but me. I would, however include the parents on the tag and that would tell you all you need to know about the breeding line.

I do understand not wanting to buy a clone of a clone of a clone though... not sure how to get around that. Buy from the origional owner of the plant and hope you get a relatively fresh one, i guess....

well sometimes they will provide information as to crosses, for example I see paph breeders often list (x sib) which denotes the parental varieties are related, which I take to mean potentially less variability within the progeny than from an outcross for example.

I think for plants where original divisions are more desired (i.e. cattleyas especially) the vendor will designate that as the price tag is invariably higher. Of course that means you have to trust your vendor!

Remember, if you're talking Paphs or Phrags, they're either going to be divisions or seed-grown. While there may be a few instances of successful cloning out there ("Never" is not a good word for orchids in general) these genera do not seem to lend themselves to cloning. So considerations for Catts and for Paphs are somewhat different in this regard.

A serious collector who jumps on new releases is far more likely to get a first-generation clone than are most growers, and a lot depends upon the size and interest of the originator, as nobody creates the hundreds of thousands, if not millions of clones that get on the market.

That brings out another facet of the discussion: what constitutes an “original clone” in the first place?

The extracted meristem is cultured to get it to replicate, and the successful protocols is divided and replated to grow it more, then divided again and again before some, possibly not all, are allowed to rest and begin differentiating.

Are a million new plants developed from the first extracted meristem all still an original clone? That process has a lot of opportunity for mutations,too.