Cymbidium insigne subsp. insigne for Andy!

Cymbidium insigne 'Alice'

In a recent posting on an international forum, one of the worlds if not the worlds best hybridizers of orchids made a very bold statement. This is a part of his post.

‘I stand by my long-held position that about 50% of the Cymbidium species are worthless for hybridizing and just space wasters in a collection. They are as insignificant as the species fanatics who grow them in most cases. I would sooner have five different forms of C. insigne than 500 of the minor species in any of their color forms.’

Now I could have been offended by such a statement as over half of my orchid collection is composed of species Cymbidiums. It is interesting though. My first encounter with the person from which the above quote emanated was in England nearly 30 years ago. It is amazing how knowing the particular characteristics of a person for such a long time tempers reactions and can even cause a bit of mirth.

In July 1980 my parents saw me off at Philadelphia International Airport. My poor Mother was doing her best to hold back her tears, my Father thankful that he was finally rid of another of his 7 children, four down – three to go. In the words of John Schumann from the Australian folk group Redgum ‘I was only 19’ (a slight underestimation but I had to use the quote). The thoughts going through my mind were torn, ecstatic at the thought of starting a new adventure and grieving as this meant that I would not see my family for three years.

This new adventure was the opportunity to go to England to pursue the non-human love of my life, orchids. You see, the year before I had applied for the Eric Young Orchid Scholarship at the Royal Horticultural Society at Wisley (Woking, Surrey, England GU23 6QB). The address was burned into my mind. The blue airmail letter offering me the scholarship was tucked neatly and tightly in my carry bag. It was the physical reminder of my destination as I was desperately trying to let go of my physical attachments in America. I cried half way across the Atlantic. I stopped after that because it was obvious that the plane was not going to turn around.

The day I arrived it was cold and gloomy, little did I realise that this was normal weather in my new home. On descent from 38,000 feet we passed through 4 distinct layers of clouds, the lowest only several hundred metres from the ground and reaching almost right to the land surface. Thankfully, it thinned a little bit just before we touched down so the passengers and the pilot could see the tarmac. I was met at the airport by the driver from the RHS Garden and taken to temporary accommodation until my flat was ready. The lady of the house showed me to my room and asked if I would like breakfast. Being the polite American (yeah, yeah they do exist), the invitation was accepted. After a quick freshen-up breakfast was served up in the kitchen. Maggie said she had prepared a traditional English breakfast; Fried eggs, fried bacon, fried bread and weak milky tea. One look at it and my stomach wanted to void its contents. We never had fried food when we were growing up and you never had milk in tea!!! I ate it.

A whole two days after arriving and after being shown around the gardens and my new workplace I was whisked off to the RHS Halls at Vincent Square to steward the RHS Orchid Committee. My role was to record the names of the plants brought in for judging on cards, see if there were drawings of previous award winners related to the plant and physically walk the plant around to each of the Judges. The judges would then poke and prod the flowers and made affirmative or negative grunting noises. After this initial pass around of some persons carefully grown plant, the committee would do one of several things; dismiss the plant, call for a second look or discuss/argue its merits or otherwise.

The judges were, at least to me at the time, very intimidating. The Chairman was Maurice Mason, a hulking bulldog of a man who obviously intimidated the other judges as well as the steward. He clearly had a sharp intellect and vast knowledge of plants. He was always the first to suggest dismissal of the plant. Dr. Geoffrey Hercklots was my favourite judge. Dr. Hercklots was a slightly built, quiet and a very thoughtful man. Being the taxonomist of the group he would confirm the identity of the plant if there were doubts. He was always very generous to me and had no trouble forgiving my mistakes. I recognized Dr. Hercklots immediately as there was a picture of him examining a Phalaenopsis in the April 1971 edition of National Geographic. The article in National Geographic, entitled ‘The Exquisite Orchids’ is what really kicked along my interest in orchids. Every word and picture of that article is burned into my memory even to this day.

There were a gaggle of other judges that would come more or less regularly. Marcel Le Couffe, Joyce Stewart, Ray Bilton, Brian and Wilma Ritterhausen and Keith Andrews just to name a few. It wasn’t until the following spring, at one of the big flower shows that the originator of the quote in the first paragraph sailed into view. Periodically there were eminent persons from other countries. At this spring show it was Andy Easton from New Zealand. From the minute he walked into the room you knew he commanded respect; the stance, the swagger, the ‘take charge’ attitude. Here was this handsome younger man with a great tan and a voice that would make an American sound like they were whispering and a laugh to match. This man was such a contrast to the others in the room. The much older, staid, porcelain-skinned, English judge’s seemed to demure to this man and hang on his every word, even though you didn’t really have to listen to be able to hear. I must admit it was great to have someone in the room who was not 3-4 times my age!

One of the memories of this meeting was a plant that I exhibited, Cymbidium Caroll (Alexanderi x eburneum). It is like a very large and shapelier C. eburneum. It was breed in 1927 but had been ‘lost’ to cultivation until I located a plant in the collection of the RHS Garden Wisley. Half of the plant went home with Keith Andrews. I have always wondered what happened to it. I have read that additional plants have turned up in Japan. Could this have come from the plant at Wisley?

Being a steward of the RHS Orchid Committee has certain benefits. Besides being exposed to the luminaries of the field and some of the best plants in existence, I had access to all the past records of the committee. This included a hand drawn painting of each of the award winning plants. These were stored in cabinets in the judging rooms. Each month I would get to go through them to pull out images of past winners to compare them with the present offerings. Many times I would go up a couple of hours early so that I could just look through the collection.

One of the plants that appeared repeatedly in the drawings was Cymbidium insigne. At least eight different cultivars of this species had been awarded between 1907 and 1931. This is an impressive record for a species. Below is a list of those early awards.

FCC 1907 ‘Glebelands’

FCC 1908 ‘Splendens’

FCC 1908 ’Superbum’

AM 1917 ’Album’

AM 1923 f. rhodochilum

AM 1923 ‘Saint Andre’

AM 1928 ‘Mrs Carl Holmes’

FCC 1931 ‘Bieri’

Interestingly, some of these cultivars still exist in cultivation! There are undoubtedly additional awarded plants, but these were only the ones conferred by the RHS Orchid Committee in the early years.

You will know by now that it is my penchant to seek out the more ‘interesting’ plants, be they species, primary hybrids or what are affectionately known as ‘Vintage’ hybrids. Now I know that Andy has said that he would happily have a collection of five C. insigne cultivars in preference to a collection of 500 various forms of the other species. For his sake and for anyone else that is interested, I have photographed seven forms of C. insigne subsp. insigne, a small portion of the numerous forms that I presently grow. At some later date I will include the others, including various forms of C. insigne subsp. siedenfadenii, a more recently described subsp. from Thailand.

Cymbidium insigne 'Album' AM/RHS

Cymbidium insigne 'Snow White'

(a true albino)

Cymbidium insigne 'Alba' X 'Album'

Cymbidium insigne (cooperi) 'Plush'

Cymbidium insigne 'Julian'

Cymbidium insigne 'Atlantis'

Cymbidium insigne 'Pink Sands'

Cymbidium insigne 'Rosa'

Cymbidium Chiisana 'Geisha Girl'

Several years ago a friend and I went to a Cymbidium show at Ararat. Ararat is an old town in western Victoria near to the famous Grampians Range. We decided to make a weekend of it as this very pretty little town is about 3 hours drive from where I live. There is nothing worse than arriving at any orchid show more than 1/2 an hour after opening. Get there late and you will totally miss out on the sales bench!

The sales bench at this particular show was, how to say this politely, not all that interesting. My taste ranges into the interesting and unconventional. So many of the plants for sale were 'showbench quality', code for big, round and boring. One of the nurseries was an outfit from New Zealand. Nearly all of the table of this seller was covered in flasks of seedlings with just a small pile of bare root divisions of plants in plastic bags.

I rummaged through the plastic bags and found some very interesting plants. There was a very dark form of Cymbidium Cricket, a primary hybrid between C. devonianum and C. madidum. Cymbidium madidum is a large rainforest species and an Australian native species. There is a picture of C. Cricket in a previous post. In another bag was a plant with the name C. Chiisana 'Geisha Girl' . It was not in flower but owing to the strange mix of Chinese and Japanese names I thought it might be interesting.

Like you do, I grabbed both bags of C. Cricket and the only bag of C. Chiisana. After sorting through the flasks and putting a few aside, it came time to pay. As the money was flying out of my coffers the question inevitably was put to the stall holder 'So what is C. Chiisana?'. He said 'hold on a minute' and turned to the person you should always ask when you don't know something, the wife. 'Is that flower of 'Geisha Girl' still around?' She reached into the rubbish box under the bench, pulled out a scrunched-up plastic bag and after a bit of todo dug out a shrivelled and crushed flower. 'Aw Sh_t, another little brown thing' went through my mind but the money had already departed my possession. I put on my best smile and exclaimed that it looked a very interesting little flower. It is hard to tell quality from a bit of dead plant material.

After a trip home the next day through an unseasonable snow storm, the plants were potted and put in the greenhouse. Cymbidium Cricket, being one of my favourite primary hybrids, got pride of place hanging from the rafters at the far end of the greenhouse. I wouldn't be able to miss them when they flowered the next year. And flower they did! These two C. Cricket obviously liked their new home and nearly doubled in size and flowered beautifully. The C. Chiisana was put on the benches with the other Australian native hybrids. By this time there was the need to find out what this odd plant was. Turns out it was registered in 1989 by a Nakoyama. A Japanese name for a hybridizer is always a good sign that there might be something interesting ahead.

Cymbidium Chiisana turns out to be a hybrid between a small reddish hybrid made in 1961 - Cymbidium Mimi and the Australian native species C. canaliculatum. I thought this might be interesting. I used to grow C. Mimi and although not the most spectacular Cymbidium it was free flowering and had a nice colour. If they used C. canaliculatum 'Sparksii' as the other parent, the progeny would be nice little compact, highly floriforous reds that may be a bit difficult to grow and possibly bloom in the cooler climes of Melbourne. You would think a hybridizer would use a red with a red, wouldn't you?

Well, all seemed to be going along well until there was the need to go to a conference overseas. My partner and I were talking one day on the phone and the question was asked 'was there anything sitting on that upturned pot on the end bench in the upper greenhouse?'. My heart sunk. I kept my specimen plant of a particularly fine form of C. eburneum on that pot to ensure that it got a bit of extra air movement. Nothing more was said until I got home a couple of weeks later. I went for a quick look around the collection to see how the 'Children' had gone while I was away. I started to feel sick the more I looked. Oh no, this couldn't have happened.

It did happen. For the third time since living at my present address I had been robbed. None of the valuables from the house, tv and computer still there, paintings still on the walls. This was much worse. Everywhere I looked there were holes on the benches where plants used to grow. Out came the inventory and down the benches I went recording the babies that were still there. The special C. eburneum was gone. The albino's were gone. The C. insigne were all gone. Aww *@%#, all the natives were gone as well as the primaries involving natives. Cymbidium Chiisana was gone.

Thank goodness, whoever got the plants didn't go through the propagation house. Backbulbs of most of the plants that went west were in the prop house. The Police were called, a list of plants provided, estimated cost tallied. Not a good feeling. I just had to accept they were lost and gone forever. The worst feeling was that whoever stole the plants was someone I knew and someone that knew the value of the plants. They only took the best.

I won't go into how I found out where some of my plants ended up but suffice to say a few of them came back to me. My lovely 20 year old C. eburneum was scorched and shriveled beyond belief and nearly brought me to tears. Some were totally dead. Interesting, C. Chiisana was looking lush and had growths twice the size of the growths it threw under my care. I thought, oh maybe it likes it a bit drier. There had to be some knowledge gained from this whole sorry episode. Cymbidium Chiisana got hung from the rafters in the shadehouse. It loved it. The growths matured and it sat there most of the winter. As with most of the C. canaliculatum hybrids the watering gets cut right back in winter, only enough to stop them from looking like prunes.

A couple of months ago I wondered if C. Chiisana was going to bloom, as most of the other C. pumilum type hybrids were showing spikes or were already in flower. As I lifted down the basket two big fat spikes as long as my thumb were poking up from the side of the plant facing the sun. Six weeks later out the flowers came.

While the plant was still in bud I went one more time to see if there was a picture of what the flower might look like. Santa Barbra Orchid Estate (SBOE) had a pic of C. Chiisana 'Kristen'! Funnily enough this pic was only put up in mid-May of this year. My heart got a bit of a flutter. Although not spectacular C. Chiisana 'Kristen' is exactly as you would expect from a hybrid between C. Mimi and C. canaliculatum 'Sparksii'. The buds were dark so hopefully mine would be just as beautiful. My heart sunk a bit when the flowers opened. It was in fact a little browny thing just like the smashed flower I had seen at the Ararat Cymbidium Show. How disappointing. Initial observations, however, can be very misleading!!! When the flowers opened the true beauty of the plant was revealed. The C. canaliculatum used was not 'Sparksii' but a normal spotted form. The results were radically different from the SBOE C. Chiisana 'Kristen'.

Cymbidium Chiisana 'Geisha Girl', as you can see is a little ripper. The lip is so pretty, being pure sparkling white with very dark red spots and edged in maroon-red. The very edge of the lip is a pinkish red which makes the overall lip look sharper than it actually is. Just behind the tip of the callus there is a pinkish blush, clearly seen in the second picture. It contrasts very nicely with the yellow overlaid with red of the petals and sepals. It is actually hard to describe in words the complexity of the colouring of this flower. The overall impression of the flower is brownish from a distance with a clear, sharply contrasting lip. When you get up close you can really see the subtleties. I hope you like it as much as I do.

Cymbidium Chiisana 'Geisha Girl'




Cymbidium Chiisana 'Geisha Girl'




Cymbidium Chiisana 'Geisha Girl'

Cymbidium Chiisana 'Geisha Girl'

Cymbidium lowianum primary hybrids and a couple of others

In 1974 I enrolled in horticulture at our local vocational technical school in Delaware County just west of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. The first year of Vo-tech was spent in the inner-urban suburb of Folcroft where we studied landscape architecture and floriculture. Our teacher was a very large man named Mr. Pleasant. He was. He encouraged our nascent interest and help steer us away from the rough-heads that occupied the majority of the courses. Folcroft, then and now, can not be classified as having reached the lofty heights of lower middle class. Many of the students were put in Vocational Technical School as they were scholastically challenged. I like to think my reasons for attending were because of interest. Because of my size, awkwardness and choice of career, it was not unusual for me to get beat up by Mike Albany, the biggest, strongest, meanest kid on the bus. He called me 'Burpee' as my favourite pastime during that first year was to memorize all the plants that occurred in the Burpee Seed Catalog. My right shoulder was constantly bruised that whole first year. I hated getting on the bus at my home high school and traveling the 1/2 hour to Vo-tech and then back again.

Second and thirst year were an absolute pleasure. Instead of being bussed to the inner suburbs we were transported through the forest to Ridley Creek State Park and the old Jeffers Estate (see below). The story goes that old man Jeffers went bankrupt and the state took over his property and converted it into a state park, namely Ridley Creek State Park. The state, making every attempt to utilize the facilities, transfered the Vocational Technical horticultural course from Folcroft to the old stable house at Ridley Creek. The gardens and greenhouses would provide just the right environment for young students studying plants. For me, apart from the wonderful plant treasures, was the relief of not having to be exposed to ruffians.

As you can see from the photo below, the house was monsterous with servents quarters and a ballroom. The gardens were magnificent with a woodland garden, a formal fountain garden, several walled gardens each containing either roses, peonies, herbs or herbaceous perennials. In the woods above the house, and just conveniently out of sight, was a greenhouse complex. These greenhouses were originally used to supply flowers, potted plants and winter vegetables to the main house. As was the custom of very wealthy estate owners, there were various collections of rare or unusual plants.

The Jeffers Estate in winter. Ridley Creek State Park, Media, Pennsylvania.

The greenhouses were of the type that were build around the turn of the century or slightly earlier. The foundations were approximately 4 feet high and composed of the local mica-schist rock, the gables of wrought iron. The size of the greenhouses matched the size of the house. A main greenhouse approximately 100 feet long, 30 feet wide and 20 feet high ran north-south. At either end and running west were to smaller houses about half as big as the main greenhouse. In the center and to the east ran a small greenhouse that connected the main greenhouse to the potting shed and boiler room. To the west between the north and south greenhouses were a series of 6 foot deep cold frames lined with the same local rock as the foundations.

The south-west greenhouse was set aside primarily for cut-flower roses and winter storage of the large pots of tender shrubs and trees, as well as Azaleas and Hydrangeas forced for winter flowering. The north-west greenhouse was for cutflowers as well, predominantly Carnations, Snapdragons, Bachelors Buttons, Gypsophila, Chrysanthemums and some Cymbidiums. The northern 2/3rds of the main greenhouse was used for potted seasonal plants, Easter Lilies, Poinsettias, Chrysanthemums. The southern third of the main house was for the tropical plants. This house was fascinating with huge pots of Coffee trees, Oleanders, Eucharis, Ferns, Bananas and of course orchids. My favourite orchid was a huge plant of Schomburgkia tibicinus (now Myrmecophila tibicinus) which sent out 3-4 metre flower spikes and always came out after we had finished school. Thankfully, I lived close to the park and could easily travel down to see it in bloom through the glass.

Mr. Bigler, our teacher, recognised that I had a penchant for plants and a particular interest in orchids. Each student had a section of the greenhouse that we looked after. Thankfully, the orchid benches and the cut flower greenhouse with the Cymbidiums were allocated to me. Now most of the Cymbidiums had obviously been there a long time and were mainly the early diploid hybrids. Interestingly, Cymbidium lowianum, and several that looked remarkably like C. Pauwelsii. I remember most of them being in the yellow, brown, green range with small flowers on tall spikes and flowering from easter onwards.

The fact that most of the Cymbidiums in the Jeffers collection were C. lowianum and its hybrids is not surprising. The flowers of C. lowianum itself can last 3 months if you periodically wash the dirt and dust off the flowers and keep the slugs and bugs off. They are easy to grow and produce long arching sprays of 20-30 or more, modest sized flowers that cut well.

Boxall, a plant collector in the mid to late 1800's collected plants of the species we now know as C. lowianum in 1877 in the hills of Myanmar. It was not originally thought to be a distinct species and was given varietal status under Cymbidium iridioides (giganteum at the time). A couple of years later it was finally recognized as distinct and given the name Lowianum after the men who had contracted Boxall to collect plants for them, Messrs Low. The original form was green with brown tinges on the petals and sepals and a bright yellow and white labellum accented by a bright to dark red patch shaped like the letter V and a central pencil line of the same colour. It was in many respects similar to the plant pictured below.

Cymbidium lowianum var. lowianum

Amongst populations of the normal coloured form, albino forms occasionally occur. These have been, in the past, been given the varietal name concolor. As these rare albinos appear in populations of otherwise normal coloured forms it is not appropriate to call them varieties, a designation usually assigned to wild plants that are reproductively isolated from other forms. It is even doubtful that these albinos should even be given a cultivar name as they are not all derived from the same plant and vary considerably. Early horticulturalists recognized several distinct albino sorts and named them var. viride and var. flaveolum. The form commonly found in cultivation at the moment goes under the name 'Concolor' and is a pleasant clear green with a yellow and white lip. The bright red patches found on the labellum of the normal coloured form are, in 'Concolor' replaced with a bright yellow patch.

Cymbidium lowianum 'Concolor'

The hybrid Cymbidium Garnet was made in 1915 using a normally coloured C. lowianum var. lowianum crossed with C. sanderae (syn. C. parishii var sanderae) The first of the next three pictures shows the results of this original cross.

Cymbidium Garnet

In more recent times, Andy Easton and several other noteworthy hybridisers have been using 'superior' forms of the wild species to remake some of the early hybrids. Here are the results of more recent breeding.

Cymbidium Garnet 'Orange Glow'

'Orange Glow' has as it's parents Cymbidium lowianum var. i'ansonii, sometime recognised as a the distinct species C. i'ansonii. Variety i'ansonii differs from var. lowianum in that the base colour of the flower is yellow-brown and the V-shaped patch is orange-red.

Cymbidium Garnet 'Greenie'

The result when you use C. lowianum 'concolor' with C. sanderae is basically a flower with green sepals and petals and an essentially white lip with red patches. 'Greenie' is the 2N version of this cross. Other forms, some of them 4N, of this same cross also exist but were not in flower this weekend when I took the pictures! The 4N forms are the same colour, some clearer, but the flowers are better shaped and larger.

Cymbidium Pauwelsii was registered in 1911 and has as its parents C. lowianum and C. insigne. The range of possibilities of crossing the many forms of both of these parents has resulted in plants that range from brown through pinks to peach and yellows. Below are just a couple examples of different forms. One of the most spectacular of the recent remakes of this hybrid is the albino form of Pauwelsii called 'New Horizon'. The 4N version is a very shapely and bright yellow, rivaling some of the more complex hybrids. The two below hold their own charm with tall arching spikes and free-flowering habit.

Cymbidium Pauwelsii 2N

Cymbidium Pauwelsii 4N

Both of the above forms of C. Pauwelsii are the result of crossing a C. lowianum 'Concolor' with a pink form of C. insigne. Both came from the same cross and seed pod but responded differently to the chemical used to convert them from diploid to tetraploid. The first one did not respond but the second did. Increasing the ploidy levels of plants can increase the size and intensify the the colours. This is exemplified in the two plants above.

If we change the variety of C. lowianum used in C. Pauwelsii to var. i'ansonii the result is very different. This cross was originally registered in 1919 when var. i'ansonii was still recognised as a species. The name given to C. i'ansonii with C. insigne is C. Ceres. The two forms below came from two separate crossings using different forms of C. insigne.

Cymbidium Ceres 2N

Cymbidium Ceres 'Florence Mausteller' 4N

When C. lowianum was crossed with C. tigrinum (a miniature species) the result was the delightfully small but remarkably perky C. lowgrinum. Cymbidium tigrinum brings down the size of the hybrid plant but also reduces the flower count. More recent introductions of more robust forms of C. tigrinum have overcome the massive reduction in flower count of the offspring bringing it back up to about 10-12 for modern C. Lowgrinum.

Cymbidium Lowgrinum 'Francis'

Probably one of the most famous of the primary hybrids of C. lowianum is the very first Cymbidium hybrid ever made - C. Eburneo-lowianum. This hybrid took the multi flowered arching green C. lowianum and crossed it with the single flowered, fragrant, white-flowered C. eburneum. The offspring were variable but basically resembled the C. lowianum parent for shape, but changed the flower colour to a dirty white with the prominant red V-shaped patch and severely reduced the flower count (usually no more than about five). Several forms of this hybrid were made using different forms of each parent. Cymbidium Eburneo-lowianum 'Concolor' was an albino form that had C. lowianum 'Concolor' as one of its parents. C. Eburneo-lowianum 'Concolor' when crossed with C. insigne 'Sanderi' produced C. Alexanderi 'Westonbirt' the most famous parent of all time and the feature of a previous post.

Cymbidium Eburneo-lowianum 'Hong Kong'

In more recent times additional species have been brought into breeding programs to create new and unusual hybrids. A top hybrid registered in 1985 is Memoria Geoff Laird. Geoff was a renown orchid grower in New Zealand. Cymbidium madidum is an Australian native species that forms huge plants but has small flowers. Thankfully, it produces long spikes that have many flowers! When C. madidum is crossed with C. lowianum the result is a truly huge plant with modest sized flowers produced on pendulous spikes well over a metre in length. Talk about a gigantic hanging basket plant!!! The good aspect of this hybrid is that if flowers for me from November right through until January. Thank goodness I have plenty of room to house it as it is definitely not a plant for growers with small greenhouses or little space.

Cymbidium Memoria Geoff Laird 'Madalaine'

Another pendulous hybrid results when you cross C. lowianum with C. devonianum. The plant resembles the C. devoniaum parent which has short, wide leaves and strongly pendulous flower spikes. The colour of C. lowianum clearly shines through and increases the size of the flowers. Below is a form of C. Langleyense made using the normally coloured form of C. devonianum and C. lowianum 'Concolor'. The plant pictured is a form converted to a tetraploid. This is a magnificent plant that gets multiple spikes per bulb and flower spikes half a metre long with upwards of 35 flowers.

Cymbidium Langleyense 'Cascades' 4N

In 1902 a hybrid was created using C. lowianum and the near-monopodial, few-flowered white species C. mastersii. Cymbidium mastersii is a special species in that instead of producing normal pseudobulbs like other Cymbidiums continues to grow from one stem for several years, flowering progressively up the stem. The flowers don't open widely, are a bit small but this apparent shortcoming is more than made up for by the species elegant growth and superb fragrance. In the 1980 more interesting forms of C. mastersii became available, some being treated to increase their ploidy level. These select forms were crossed with select forms of C. lowianum to produce very beautiful offspring. Below is one of these modern crossings. The parents of this one are C. lowianum 'Concolor' and C. mastersii 'Geyserland'. The seedling were converted to tetraploids. The colour of these plants is very hard to capture as it is an ice green/white and the lip has an almost magenta-red patch on the lip. When it flowers next year I will get a much better picture. I am still learning the finer points of photography. Some colours still give me curry. So does focus.

Cymbidium Lowio-mastersii 4N

Cymbidium Lowio-grandiflorum, like C. lowio-mastersii, was registered in 1902. In many respects this is the type of hybrid that you would expect to see in the wild. Both C. lowianum and C. grandiflorum (hookerianum) grow near to each other but are normally prevented from cross-pollinating as their flowering time does not overlap. Both species are green with red on the lip. C. grandiflorum has spots on the front part of the lip and stripes of the sidelobes. C. lowianum only has the V-shaped red bar on the edge of the midlobe of the lip. Crossing the two combines all the best features of both parents but also removes a couple of others. C. grandiflorum is highly fragrant, C. lowianum and C. Lowio-grandiflorum completely scentless. The stems of C. lowianum are strong and arching, C. grandiflorum thin and pendulous. The hybrid is somewhat in between, not strong enough to be arching but too strong to be pendulous. Cymbidium lowio-grandiflorum is however remarkably strongly and clearly coloured. Unfortunately, it is most commonly identified as C. lowianum, its unique qualities and identity being subsumed into its more common parent.

Cymbidium Lowio-grandiflorum 'Clearview'

Below are two hybrids that show very strong C. lowianum influence. The upper photo is a hybrid between C. Pauwelsii and C. eburneum and is called C. Sybil. This plant came to me from a deceased estate in Sydney and still had the brass, embossed label on it when I inherited it in 1983. Cymbidium Sybil was registered in 1916, the year my father was born. Interestingly enough, while the colour of the C. Pauwelsii parent is washed out, the strong fragrance of the C. eburneum parent is only slightly diminished. This is one of my favourite plants. It is hard to portray exactly how beautiful this plant is. I know that most people go for the beauty of the individual flower but in some cases the production and configuration of the whole plant, leaves, flower spikes and individual flowers come together to make one magnificent whole. The flower spikes produce only 5 or so flowers and they barely make it beyond the leaves. However, each bulb produces, on average two spikes per year and will flower for 2-3 years from the same bulb. The leaves are thin and arching. The pseudobulbs are long and narrow and tightly clustered. I have never divided the plant in all of the time that I have had it, only removing dead pseudobulbs and refreshing the potting mix. It grows happily in a 12 inch pot. This year it has 17 flower spikes, it would have had 18 but I broke one off after it came out and gave it to a friend.

Cymbidium Sybil 'Perky'

This last plant is the problem child of my collection. I bought it many many years ago as a seedling. I actually have several from the same batch that look similar. It was sold to me as C. lowianum from a reliable grower who had inported a flask from an even more reliable grower in California. It look for all the world like a C. lowianum and the plants and flowering time are identical. The other alternative is that it may be the hybrid between Golden Cascade and C. lowianum 'Concolor' . Cymbidium Golden Cascade is half C. lowianum 'Concolor' so this would make the hybrid pictured below 3/4 C. lowianum 'Concolor'. It is one of those plants that i will never really know for sure what it is, but hey, some plants are just so stunning that you keep them anyway. This one is a keeper.

Cymbidium Alexanderi 'Westonbirt'

Some plants are just steeped in mystery and romance. There is the legendary Rafflesia arnoldii that purportedly has the largest flower in the world. This giant flower, up to 1 m across and weighing in at 10 k grows in the deepest darkest rainforests of Malaysia, Sumatra and Indonesia. Rafflesia adds to its mystery as it is parasitic, living its life inside the stems of the grape relative Tetrastigma. The flowers burst through the sides of the plant stems in the same manner as the alien emerged from the humans in the movie Alien. As if this plant did not have enough weirdness about it the flowers just had to smell of rotting meat and be pollinated by blowflies.

The orchid world is resplendent with stories of fantastic plants that have been found once in some far-flung jungle and never to be seen again. Paphiopedilum sanderianum was found in 1885 in Borneo but the specific location was never recorded. This bizarre flower has twisted hairy petals that grow up to a metre in length. Imagine a flower stem with 6 flowers with long, flowing hairy tresses. The plant equivalent of Medusa! Some plant freaks go so far as to suggest that these long hairy petals are ladders, up which the insect pollinators climb. It was not until 1978 that it was rediscovered. The only proof that this plant existed was a beautiful drawing. Some botanists went so far as to think and, God-forbid, say that it may have been a hoax. The plant still grows in a highly protected national park in Borneo. Oh, you can also buy a 2.25 inch pot for $125.oo.

The genus Cymbidium is not immune from both real and imagined mysterious plants. Cymbidium sanderae , or Cymbidium parishii var sanderae as it is more widely known, is a classic. It is not really clear where the plant actually comes from. The location on the original label does not exist. The specimen sheet that represents the type specimen is a mixture of flowers from different plants, giving the impression of a hybrid swarm. Cymbidium sanderae was lost to cultivation and in the wild until it was discovered in a greenhouse in California. That original plant was propagated and colchicine treated to convert some of the progeny into tetraploids. The diploid and tetraploid forms are now grown widely throughout the world but have still not been relocated in the wild. The plant freaks starting to question the validity of C. sanderae as a species as they are wont to do with long 'extinct' plants.

Anyone that has had even a passing fancy for Cymbidium hybrids and their parents would know that C. Alexanderi 'Westonbirt' is by far the most famous stud plant, having sired or carried literally hundreds of progeny. Most of the large-flowered Cymbidium hybrids and an increasing number of the more modest-sized hybrids can trace back to C. Alexanderi 'Westonbirt'. I won't go into the history of this plant as this plant is probably the most written about Cymbidium. Suffice to say it has it all, beauty, fertility, fame, fortune, it was breed on the estate of a famous aristocrat and awarded a First Class Certificate by none other than the Royal Horticultural Society. No story is complete without a bit of skullduggery and a few questions about breeding!

So lets get to the parents of C. Alexanderi. The listed parents are C. eburneo-lowianum x insigne but things are never as straightforward as what they seem. Getting more specific we find out that the parents are C. eburneo-lowianum 'concolor' x insigne 'Sanderi'. Now you ask, 'Why does the insertion of 'concolor' make a difference?". Well, you see, C. eburneo-lowianum 'concolor' is a hybrid between the species C. eburneum and C. lowianum 'concolor'. 'So?', you ask. This is where the dodgy breeding comes in. Cymbidium lowianum 'concolor' is a freak wildling that has a problem. It has faulty chromosomes that don't go through meiosis properly. What this means is that some of the progeny may have twice as many chromosomes. This is what has happened with C. Alexanderi 'Westonbirt'. While most of the C. Alexanderi grex where diploids, several turned out to be tetraploids. Tetraploids tend to be larger overall compared with their diploid siblings. C. Alexanderi 'Westonbirt' created an absolute sensation when exhibited at the Royal Horticulture Societies orchid committee and was immediately awarded.

But lets back up a bit here. The grex C. Alexanderi was made many times using slightly different parents. Siblings were also crossed with each other. All this breeding resulted in a wide range of colours from pure white albinos through yellows, pinks and murky reddish browns all using the same 'species' in the same proportions. Several of these alternative C. Alexanderi were also awarded. All went quiet on creating C. Alexanderi until recently when Andy Easton tried to repeat the cross using improved parents. His results are spectacular but nothing has resulted that approaches C. Alexanderi 'Westonbirt'.

Why would anyone want to re-create C. Alexanderi 'Westonbirt'? Put quite simply, the original plants were held quite tightly by the original owner in England. Unfortunately, most of these original plants became infected with virus and had to be destroyed. Now I am not one to look for the benefits of war, but the Second World War may have saved the life of C. Alexanderi 'Westonbirt'. With the likelihood of the destruction of London and the rationing of all things during the war, some of the large estates sent their prized plants to friends in far-flung regions of the British Empire. C. Alexanderi 'Westonbirt' was one of these plants. Thankfully, some of these pre-war plants were virus free.

A few of these plants went to a grower in Canada. From there, divisions were sent to Australia and found their way into the collection of a very wealthy and very private gentleman. His gardeners were very meticulous and kept this mans collection of awarded plants in very good condition. Near the end of this man's life, he passed on divisions of his prized plants on to another wealthy and, interestingly enough, very private man. Neither of these men had the slightest interested in the commercial orchid trade having made their fortunes through business for the former and by being a surgeon for the later. The surgeon, a good friend of mine, called me up last year and asked me to come over. Normally, it is me that rings him! This got my mind thinking he had gotten a new lot of plants that he wanted me to see. The truth was much more exciting.

When I arrived at my surgeon friends house we had the obligatory cup of tea, chocolate biscuits and chat. He then started to talk to me about his health. He is well past his seventieth birthday. He mentioned that his heart had been playing up and that the doctors had to 'zap' him a few times to get the beat regular again. This had encouraged him to think of his future, his much younger wife's future and what was going to happen to his plants. He was kind enough to say that he had written me into his will. I was to have first dibs on his collection of species. This was a very nice gesture and I must admit, slightly overwhelming to be told this before someone's death. I felt honoured that he would trust me to carry on his legacy. I had seen his plants many times and his collection of species contains almost all awarded clones. The greenhouse is meticulously clean and the plants are well grown and virus-free. Any new plants are quarantined and tested before they are allowed into the main greenhouses.

What happened next shook me. Did I mention this surgeon is a very private person? He keeps a lot of secrets and the one he was about to reveal was a stunner. He took me to a greenhouse way down the back of the property that I had never been to. Actually, I did not even know it was there. He unlocked and opened the door. What was inside was amazing. There were three long benches running the length of the greenhouse, the one in the middle double-wide. It contained only Cymbidiums, all grown to specimen size except for a small group of a few dozen smaller pots on one of the side benches. It was like going back in time. The plants were all grown in terracotta pots and meticulously groomed. The floor was covered in clean algae-free concrete creating an almost surgical cleanliness. As we walked down the edge of one of the benches, I asked him what these Cymbidiums were. FCC's he said. Yep, he had made a collection of only FCC Cymbidiums. and had been doing so since he was a young man.

One particular plant caught my eye, a plant I had only seen in pictures. Yes, it was C. Alexanderi 'Westonbirt' . I asked him where he had gotten it. He told me the out of England to Canada to Tasmania story. He had inherited his older plants from the Tasmanian man in the 1960's. Then he mentioned that Dr. Don Wimber had seen the plants in the 1960's or 70's and had confirmed its identity. This shocked me as I didn't think he was social enough to have known many people in the orchid world. This helped me to believe him that this C. Alexanderi 'Westonbirt' was the real deal.

More recently, my friend has had another turn. Unsurprisingly his first priority was to ensure that his wife will be well looked after. More surprising is that he is almost equally concerned about his collection of awarded Cymbidiums. I visited him this weekend to catch up. Again he rang me not the other way around. No Tea and biscuits today. He was in the mood for a good chat. He even berated me for being fifteen minutes late. A quick pass through the species house and straight to the Cymbidium house. Door unlocks and in we go. This time bypassing the specimen plants and right to the smaller plants. There it is, C. Alexanderi 'Westonbirt' in full bloom in an 8" pot. He reaches down, picks it up and hands it to me. He repeated this with half a dozen other famous plants. I still have not come down from the excitement. I ask him if he was trying to give me a heart attack.

Now I have a dilemma. I have to build a greenhouse like his. I would like something with a concrete floor, brick base and aluminium and glass top. Oh, and a lockable door. My finances are nothing like my friend's. For the moment, my new plants are locked in my potting shed.

When I got home I had to quickly get a photo of C. Alexanderi 'Westonbirt'; partly to prove it was real and partly to capture it for posterity. I had never seen a real plant and I could touch and look at this one to my hearts content. Most, if not all of the pictures I had seen, looked nothing like the original painting done on the day it was awarded at Greycoat St. London, SW1.

The first photo below is reproduced courtesy of the Royal Horticultural Society, London (Orchid Committee) . It shows a painting of a single flower of C. Alexanderi 'Westonbirt' on the day it was awarded, 14th march 1922. The other three are photos of plant in my potting shed. Have a look at the upper flower in the photo with two flowers. Remarkably similar to the drawing from the RHS. Even the petals are folding in just the same way. I wonder how long it will take me to settle down?

Cymbidium devonianum primary hybrids

People grow plants for all sorts of reasons. When just a teenager I had the pleasure to work for a nursery woman named Florence Bertermann. She was an eccentric old cuss. In 1936 she graduated from Bryn Mawr college near Philadelphia where she had majored in horticulture. Shortly afterward she met a nice serviceman and planned to get married. A Bryn Mawr graduate getting married at that time was a highly unusual occurrence due to the politics of the day. Did I mention that Bryn Mawr College was a women's only college? Thankfully, or maybe not, Florence's fate intervened and she did not get married. The war took her servicemen. She was so 'broken-hearted' (her words) that she never again even dated a man. Interestingly, she kept of picture of her serviceman, I never did know his name, on the wall above her television.

Florence, being a woman of means, did however hire an African-American man-servant named Lee who took care of her until the day she died in 1976. There was an uncanny resemblance to the story portrayed in Driving Miss Daisy going on between these two. Florence and Lee set up a nursery business together near to Bryn Mawr in the then rural Newtown Square. She grew and hybridized a great many hardy shrubs and trees and maintained some beautiful glasshouses full of exotic plants. By the time I met Florence most of her outdoor nursery was overgrown and more like a jungle. She did still sell plants though. My job was to look after the greenhouses.

The greenhouses were just magnificent for a 12 year old boy. On either end and along the back of one of the 'tropical' greenhouses were exotic creepers that she harvested the flowers from to sell to florist shops. Most of the back wall was covered in the amazingly fragrant Stephanotis (Stephanotis floribunda), a beautiful pure white Hoya-like flower 4cm wide with a long floral tube, the flowers being produced in clusters of 20 more. Stephanotis is a classic, or at least was a classic, flower for wedding bouquets. At the far end of the greenhouse, climbing all the way to the gables, was an intermingled mass of Scarlet Passionflower (Passiflora racemosa) and Bleeding Heart Vine (Clerodenron thompsoniae).

The cooler greenhouses were less interesting, basically used to house plants that were just outside their range of hardiness and of course for the seasonal bulbs that would be hoisted out of the cold frames just in time to flower for Easter or Mothers Day. One bench of the greenhouse contained a large number of Cymbidiums, again used for cut flowers. It is interesting that even to this day I can remember the name of one that I particularly loved. This stunner of a Cymbidium was Lowell Swisher, a clear buff colour with red spots on the lip. Florence taught me the value of Cymbidiums with this plant. Even in 1970 she was getting $1.50 apiece for the flowers. Lowell Swisher commonly produced 15+ flowers per spike and her bigger plants had 6-8 spikes. That is $130 - $180 per year per plant and she had dozens of plants! This was big money in 1970. I was lucky enough to inherit the Cymbidiums and other orchids that Florence had and luckily by then I had my own greenhouse to put them in.

So what has this got to do with Cymbidium devonianum? Hanging in the corner of the cool greenhouse were several redwood slatted baskets filled with a Cymbidium much different to the others sitting firmly on the ground in their terracotta pots. These hanging cymbidiums had leaves about 4-5cm wide and about 30cm long shaped like long bent spatulas. The upper half of the leaf was broad and rounded on the end, flopping over slightly. This wide section tapered abruptly into a narrow petiole-like section that was bolt upright and held the broad section well above the basket giving and impression of a bunch of green banners on sticks. Even stranger, the flowers did not rise up above the foliage like their terrestrial relatives growing on the benches under them, but plunged through the osmunda fibre in which the plants were growing and out through the slats at the bottom of the basket. The flowers were not very pretty to a 12-year-old but held a strange somewhat creepy fascination. There were basically green, spotted with brown on the sepals and petals with two purplish-red spots on the sides of the lip. I am not sure if it was the flowers or the particular spot where these plants were growing but I distinctly remember the not overly pleasant smell. This smell could of course have been the deposits of one of the numerous cats that would spend their time in various spots in the greenhouse, especially this shady corner with a thick growth of Holly Fern (Crytomium falcatum).

Many years later I learned that this hanging Cymbidium was indeed C. devonianum a relatively rare, highly distinctive Cymbidium. Unlike many of it's relatives is primarily grows on rocks (lithophytic) and only occasionally on trees. It sends it's unusually thick roots through the thick covering of moss on the rocks and spreads its flowers spikes along the top of the moss. It grows in mountain areas in nepal, north-east india, through to Thailand, Vietnam and the very western parts of China (Yunnan).

Unfortunately, my plants are not in flower at the moment, it will be a month or so before they open. You can easily find pictures of Cymbidium devonianum on the net. It almost seems as if there is a competition on the web to get a picture of a plant with as many flower spikes as possible. It is a habit of this plant to flower it's little head off.

What got me started on the subject of this post is that my friend Sue is giving me lessons on how to photograph plants properly. You can see her pictures of my plants here. My pictures have a way to go before they have the finesse of hers but I am getting better at it. My task this weekend was to take pictures of the many Cymbidiums that are flowering at the moment. I like to keep a record of all my plants.

My collection, as I have mentioned before, is of the 'not the usual' type of Cymbidium. Although beauty does come into the equation when selecting plants for the collection, my interest is heavily focussed on species and primary hybrids. I actually find the species, primary hybrids and less complex hybrids much more interesting than the highly bread types that are much of a muchness. I am fascinated how character traits are passed on in primary hybrids. Below are a few of Cymbidium devonianum primary hybrids (hybrids between two wild species). All of the pictures below have been taken by myself this weekend except for the picture of Cym. Tiny Tiger that was provided by my friend Julian. If you click on the picture it should bring it up to a much larger size. Notice that the cell structure is clearly visible on some of the flowers. The speckling of C. devonianum flowers and pendulous flower spikes are pretty dominant as well. I hope you enjoy!

Cymbidium Devon Parish

(devonianum x sanderae)

Cymbidium Tiny Tiger (photo by Julian Coker)

(devonianum x tigrinum)

Cymbidium Miss Muffett

(devonianum x floribundum)

Cymbidium Vogelsang

(devonianum x insigne)

Cymbidium Cricket

(devonianum x madidum)

Cymbidium (not yet named)

(devonianum x faberi)

Cymbidium Jean Brummitt

(devonianum x eburneum)

Cymbidium Langleyense

(devonianum x lowianum)