Orchid Wiz

[cbuchman]

I have it and echo the comments made here. I use it almost daily. I also know there is more capability to explore. Right now, I look up cultural information and use the database for my collection. I bought it late last year and go the Orchid Board discount.

BTW, you can use it on 2 computers. So I have it on my desktop and my laptop. But, I still need to figure out how to share the My Plants files between the two.

[tropterrarium]

How good is it for odd-ball species? I'm into Oberonia, and there are about 150-300 species in that genus. Anybody willing to give Oberonia merrillii, O. pachyrachis, or O. seidenfadenii a try?

I do spend money on literature, but have no interest in hybrids, so not sure it it is worth the cost.

[samarak]

Version 10 has 442 entries for Oberonia, of which I estimate about 110-120 are shown as synonyms. (Re nomenclature, OW is usually fairly up to date, but not bleeding edge. For example, Sophronitis coccinea is shown as a synonym of Cattleya coccinea and has been for some time, but Neofinetia falcata is still shown as an accepted name, rather than Vanda falcata which is now the accepted name on Kew. Generally he just waits to see if changes are likely to stick before including them.) All three of the species you list are shown, but with little data and no pictures.

You'll find at least an entry for almost everything, but if it's rarely cultivated you likely won't find much information about it. Of course, I've found that to be true of most other resources, too.

It's hard to tell how many of the Oberonia have pictures; more than 30. Four Oberonia species have a short entry in the ethnobotanical section.

We grow some hybrids, but my true love is species, and we grow a lot of oddball things so I understand your question. It's still a useful tool - my wife and I have been using it extensively over the last few days researching plants for a group order that is entirely species. But we also used IOSPE, Kew, IPNI, ThePLantList, and Google; each has been useful. OW is useful because it's got a lot of data in one place and is available all the time. If you grow only the most esoteric and uncommon species, don't care about award data or hybrids at all, don't want to use its record-keeping facilities, and don't mind collating data from around the Internet and research libraries yourself, then maybe it would not be that useful to you ... of course it is improving all the time, more and more contributors adding information and photographs.

Long post, I know. Hope it's helpful.

Steve

[HighSeas]

Thank you all for your review of the software. Sounds like a very valuable resource. I've purchased books before...most of which have been very expensive. I like the idea of having the information readily accessible and tucked neatly way in my computer. I think I'll give it a try!

[tropterrarium]

Hi Steve,

thanks for the helpful reply. Marianna of OW also said that there are about 40 images of Oberonia, so about $8 per image. I've spent more per image when buying books, but also have 280 images (and growing) of Oberonia, plus additional SEMs.

List of taxa and correct names can easily be downloaded from the web. IOSPE, IPNI, ICN, BHL +++ are excellent resources. Still need the old library. My collation of only about 100 refs is around 800 pages in InDesign, don't know how many illustrations, but several hundreds. Have not yet mined IOSPE; some IDs are positively wrong, and Jay has many disclaimers on those pages. All well understood, no harm, no foul. A GREAT resource as well.

OW seems to be a great generalist resource. Maybe have to find someone in a society to let me look at their copy. Will see ...

cheers!