Paphiopedilum species needs ID

[sastry]

Hi
I have couple of Paph species from N.E. Of India. Two of them especially P.insigne and P.exul has similar patterns on the flower. P.exul differs with a larger and fuller dorsal part covering the pouch. Somehow P.insigne tends come out with different colour. If anybody is conversant with these two, please confirm and assist
Thanks
sastry

[dounoharm]

all are beautiful, but like any orchid, without a tag from the grower, they are NO ID'S....enjoy them as they are!

[sastry]

Hi dounoharm
These i have been growing for several years and one has been identified as P.exul, but among the other two plants needs confirmation whether both are P.insigne or variant ?
any way thanks for responding
sastry

[naoki]

Originally Posted by dounoharm

all are beautiful, but like any orchid, without a tag from the grower, they are NO ID'S....enjoy them as they are!

I think you are talking about hybrid ID. But these are species, so we "should" be able to identify with taxonomic keys.

Sastry, I agree with your identification. Braem's key mentions the size of dorsal (top) seval vs (bottom) synsepal (as you mentioned). Also, it says that the adult plants shows arching leaves in P. insigne, but P. exul shows suberect (more standing up) leaves.

I'm curious, is the 2nd plant (P. exul) from Northern India? I looked up a couple books, and all of them say that they are found in Thailand. Maybe the books need to be updated.

Are these two P. insigne from two distant populations? I'm wondering if the variation is intra-populational variation (unlikely) or inter-populational variation.

[sastry]

Thanks Naoki,
As you rightly mentioned the major perceptible difference between exul and insigne is the synsepal which is full and oval in shape and almost covering the lip and at times more in width and length than the lip. But the insigne is the one which is showing variation ? could be due to some kind of mixture in the population?. These are all from North Eastern part of India where i was working in Forest Department, i know exul is from Thailand and is not reported in India, but looks like some how got into collection of some nurseries/collectors and is availble now and at times passed on as insigne.
Thanks for throwing some additional info on these
sastry

[naoki]

Braem's books do mention high phenotypic variation within P. insigne. A lot of taxonomy in orchids appear to be problematic because those alpha taxonomists do not study the species in the field or don't pay much attention to population genetics.

Did you post this message to

Slippertalk Orchid Forum- The best slipper orchid forum for paph, phrag and other lady slipper orchid discussion! - Powered by vBulletin

? I think that they may have more things to say about the range of variations.

[sastry]

Thanks Naoki
You are right in saying the observations in field in which the species exhibits their natural characters is utmost important than the one under cultivation! It is always the case that under cultivation several characters mainly morphological starts varying mainly because of environment. Ultimately the interaction of this genetic x environment = may result in variation. In such cases whether these changes are retained or will undergo further depending on environment ? Anyway there is plenty of room for discussion on these as we have seen the phenotypes being produced as a result of varying environment with same genotypes. Thanks I will try to post this in the slipper talk forum
Sastry