Bc. Hippodamia - spotted primary hybrid
If a spotted cattleya is crossed to a non-spotted cattleya, the progeny MAY bloom without spots. However, this is not a general rule & not always the case. The general rule is more a matter of: "it depends." It depends on what flowers are being crossed.
Flower color is more than what the human eye sees. Many times, we say that a certain color is recessive when a cross is made. For example, if a yellow flower is crossed to a lavender, it is very likely that the offspring will be lavender instead of yellow. However, if the color from one parent does not appear in the offspring, it may not necessarily be the case that the color is recessive. Instead, there may be some masking of that color by the other color. The colors from both parents may be there, but one color may not be apparent, because it blends into or is masked by the other darker color.
If a dark purple is crossed to a yellow with red spots, it is likely that there would be no visible red spots in the offspring. Purple consists of red & other pigments & even if red spots were present, they may not be visible because of masking. Sometimes, a parent with dark flaring will produce flares in the offspring that are not strikingly visible, if the other parent has a dark masking color.
On the other hand, if one parent has distinct spotting & the other parent is white, yellow, or has lightly saturated pigments, it is very likely that the spotting can come through. This is indeed a case of one spotted parent & an unspotted parent producing spotted offspring.
Attached is a very good example of a primary hybrid with distinct spots. Bc. Hippodamia is a cross we’ve made many times, between Brassavola nodosa (greenish petals & sepals, white lip, with no spots) & Cattleya aclandiae (chartreuse, with spots & reddish lip). In this case, the offspring spots are very predictable. There are no colored pigments in the non-spotted parent to mask the strong pigments from the spotted parent. Many of our Bl. Richard Mueller crosses also produce spotted offspring … in the case of: hybrid x species and hybrid x hybrid.
Predicting spotted offspring is a bit trickier in some complex hybrids, because colors might be masked.
Probably the rule of thumb is not that spotted x non-spotted do not produce unspotted offspring; rather, it is probably more a matter of how strong & what color the spots are in the spotted parent and the color & intensity of the non-spotted parent.
Last edited by catwalker808; 09-08-2014 at 06:45 PM..
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