The mystery of the Grand Monarch

Cymbidium Grand Monarch 'Exquisitum'
(RHS image)

Cymbidium Grand Monarch 'Exquisitum'

In real life.

In the early years of orchid registration by the Royal Horticultural Society all new crosses were treated as horses are today; all crosses had their birthday as the 1rst of January of the year of their registration. One other little quirk of these early years of registration was the order in which the parents were listed. Unfortunately, in the early years species used in a cross were put in alphabetical order, regardless of their contribution. In recent times the Pod Parent (Mother) is listed first and the Pollen Parent (Father) is listed second.

Cymbidium Grand Monarch was registered in the same year it received an award, 1931. On the 24th of November 1931, McBean's exhibited a plant of C. Grand Monarch 'Exquisitum'. At this November meeting, the judges decided to give it an Award of Merit. Interestingly, the plant was a first-flowered seedling and had one spike of 10 flowers. One wonders what award this plant would have received if the grower had waited a year or two. The flower count on an individual spike would not have increased, due to the influence of the 1-flowered grandparent C. eburneum, but it may have had several spikes that would have made an impressive display.

It always amazes me what qualities make a plant worthy of keeping in cultivation. Many apparently fine plants are seen for a couple of years and then disappear from showbenches and collections. Cymbidium Grand Monarch has been in continuous cultivation since its introduction and has actually increased in popularity as the years have gone by. From 1931 until 1956 C. Grand Monarch was completely ignored by the hybridizers but gained popularity in its own right. Why? Here was a large flower on a compact plant that had interesting colour and fragrance. Why did it take 25 years for the first hybrids to be made using this fascinating plant?

Between 1956 and 1989 a total of 25 hybrids were made using C. Grand Monarch; 11 times as a pod parent and 14 times as a pollen parent. Surprisingly, not many of these hybrids have gained any recognition. Where they bad? Did they come in a period when clear, bright colours were the flavour of the day? Probably the most famous of the progeny of Grand Monarch is the beautiful green C. Sicily (C. Baldur x Grand Monarch). Other potentially interesting hybrids that I would love to see are Grand Azi (C. Alexanderi x Grand Monarch) and Grand Vizier (C. goeringii x Grand Monarch). Some of the hybrids, judging only by the parents, where obviously very speculative crosses and were probably not well thought out (read ugly).

The origianl plant of C. Grand Monarch 'Exquisitum' proved very popular with particular groups of people. The English and Scottish treasured the plant because of its hardiness, compact growth, free flowering nature, large flowers and fragrance. A powerful combination. The Californians liked it equally well, for the same reasons the English and Scots liked it. Australia, being part of the Commonwealth came under the spell of C. Grand Monarch after plants found their way here in the 1950's.

Although plants of C. Grand Monarch were introduced before the 1950's by the 'Brits', it was actually plants introduced by the Italians that most strongly influenced the popularity of C. Grand Monarch here in Australia. Mass migration of Italians to Australia in the 1950's brought many cultural changes to Australia, particularly the finer things in life like food, wine, plants and a well developed sense of fun and continuity of culture. Many of the migrants brought reminders of the 'Home Country'. One of these reminders was the plant under discussion here. This strong emotional tie ensured that not only was the plant treasured by the original owners but passed on to others in the same community as an attempt to re-establish a the old country in a new homeland. Amongst the general public, C. Grand Monarch has gained the rare honour of being one of those plants that has actually retained its cultivar name in the common name. It is called The Grand Monarch Orchid, just as Rosa 'Peace' is called The Peace Rose or Acer platanoides 'Crimson King' is called Crimson King Maple. For an orchid to be identified by the wider community by it actual cultivar name is a very rare and special occurrance.

My first encounter with C. Grand Monarch was while studying at the Royal Horticultural Societies Garden at Wisley in England. The collection of plants in that orchid collection had some very fine plants, many of them old hybrids and species. Three of the plants that I fell totally in love with were C. elegans, C. Grand Monarch 'Exquisitum' and Cymbidium Caroll (C. Alexanderi x eburneum). It was such a disappointment to have to leave the orchid collection at the RHS. Thankfully, my move to Australia meant that a ready supply of C. Grand Monarch was available. But was it? Many of the plants I came across in Australia were not the same as the plants seen in England. Occasionally, a plant would appear that matched the English plants. At one local orchid show there were three distinct plants all exhibited under the name C. Grand Monarch 'Exquisitum'. Being a botanist, this situation was intolerable and bothered me to the core. Never one to shirk a challenge, I set about working out what was what.

Lets start with what goes in to making C. Grand Monarch. The parentage of C. Grand Monarch is C. hookerianum x C. Wiganianum. Now, C. Wiganianum is a primary hybrid between C. eburneum and C. tracyanum. This is good, there are only three species involved; hookerianum contributing 50% of the genes, eburneum and tracyanum 25% each. Problem 1, there are various forms of each of these species, with one of the forms of hookerianum being particularly spotty (var. punctatum). The variety punctatum of C. hookerianum is not recognised as a true variety but is still recognised as a cultivated variety or CV. This would mean that it is written as C. hookerianum 'Punctatum'. First challenge? Get a plant of C. hookerianum 'Punctatum'. Thankfully, this was relatively easy. There are some fine correctly labelled plants in choice collections around the world. My plant was sourced from a very reputable grower in Tasmania. When the plant flowered I realized that one of the spotty green plants I saw around the traps was C. hookerianum 'Punctatum. One spotty green Cymbidium down several more to go.

Cymbidium hookerianum 'Punctatum'

Photo by Dr. Susan Bevan

Two more hookerianum things turned up at different shows at opposite ends of the state of Victoria. The first one was exhibited by Lois Barber at the Ararat Show. It had a Blue Ribbon on it by the time I saw it. It was the centerpiece of her display. The plant was large and well grown, half a dozen spikes each with about 20 flowers. I was in love. It was green and a little spotty at the base of the petals but a bit more wavy than what I knew as Grand Monarch. Not being one who is shy, the question 'have you got a division you are willing to sell, came out of my mouth right after she served me tea and scones in the cafeteria. She sent her husband home to get one. A few dollars later and two plants heavier, I was the proud owner of C. Erica Sander (hookerianum x Pauwelsii). Oh well, not Grand Monarch but a stunning plant none-the-less.

Cymbidium Erica Sander
N.B. The identity of this plant has been questioned by an international authority. Proceed with caution!

The next plant to turn up was not a Grand Monarch either. It was the very common C. Lowio-grandiflorum (C. hookerianum x lowianum). Again, a very beautiful plant but not the green I was after. It was sold to me out of flower as C. Grand Monarch 'Equisetum'. Now the true name should be 'Exquisitum'. The name Equisetum is the generic name of the Horsetail plant. An easy mistake to make. Putting the wrong name on the wrong plant, unfortunately, is also an easy mistake to make.

Cymbidium Lowio-grandiflorum 'Clearview'

Ok, lets get back to the spotty C. hookerianum hybrids. Now that we have C. hookerianum 'Punctatum' out of the way and a couple of unspotted green hybrids, that leaves us two potential candidates. The first is easily disposed of as a potential candidate for Grand Monarch status. Then again maybe not so easily disposed of. Cymbidium Rosefieldense is a primary hybrid between C. hookerianum and C. tracyanum. This plant is by far the plant most commonly sold as C. Grand Monarch. Rosefieldense regularly appears on ebay and at many orchid shows as Grand Monarch. Nice as it is it is not the genuine article. Rosefieldense was registered and awarded an AM by the RHS in 1912. More recently, improved forms have been made. I have way too many plants in my collection of Rosefieldense, all but three purchased as C. Grand Monarch. Thankfully, the plant is extremely popular, a rampant grower and flowerer and is easy to sell.

Cymbidium Rosefieldense

We finally get to the genuine article, C. Grand Monarch 'Exquisitum'. As mentioned before this is a hybrid between hookerianum and Wiganianum. Let us finaly look at the species that make up this hybrid. Cymbidium hookerianum we have already seen. Cymbidium Wiganianum is a rarely seen but beautiful plant in its own right. The one parent of Wiganianum, C. eburneum, is the well known Lilac-scented Cymbidium. This refined species usually produces but one flower on a stem but that one flower is a stunner. Mostly white, or with a blush of pink, and the most intoxicating fragrance. Cymbidium tracyanum on the other hand is the real 'Masculine' member of the Cymbidium genus. Robust, chunky leaves and spikes with big, bold, dark flowers and a deep rich fragrance. Cross these two divergent species together and you get a delicate green with some spotting and three-day growth on the lip and reeking of cheap aftershave. I have to thank Ed Merkle for supplying me with the wonderful pictures of C. Wiganianum and the description of him having to drive for hours with the car air-conditioning on refresh to keep the smell of C. Wiganianum at bay.

Cymbidium eburneum crossed with

Cymbidium tracyanum 'Atlantis'
Produces

Cymbidium Wiganianum Photo Courtesy of Ed Merkle

Now you would think that the story would end here. This all makes sense and it is all very straightforward. When you deal with humans nothing ever goes to plan. You can argue until you are blue in the face and some people will just keep coming back and saying 'no you're wrong, my plant is a Grand Monarch'. Well for those who do not believe there is only one thing to do; put the plants next to each other and take a photo. So here they are, Rosefieldiense and Grand Monarch, cheek to jowl.

Cymbidium Rosefieldense (top flower) Cymbidium Grand Monarch 'Exquisitum' (lower flower)

There are some real and clearly visible differences between Rosefieldense and Grand Monarch. The main differences are:

Rosefieldense
Darker Green
denser/smaller spots
all segments narrower/shorter
flower about as wide as tall
Calli white with long hairs

Grand Monarch

Whitish Green

Fewer/larger spots

All segments broader/longer

Flower wider than tall

Calli yellow with short dense hairs.

Just so you can see for yourself, there are a series of photos of the labellums and calli of all the species and hybrids involved in the hybrids Rosefieldense and Grand Monarch. The key here is to look at the calli on the labellum. There is no way to get yellow calli from a direct cross of hookerianum and tracyanum (Rosefieldense). Alternatively, you can only get a yellow callus with short hairs by introducing eburneum into the mix.

Cymbidium hookerianum
crossed with

Cymbidium tracyanum
produces

Cymbidium Rosefieldense

Cymbidium eburneum
crossed with

Cymbidium tracyanum
produces

Cymbidium Wiganianum Then crossed onto

Cymbidium hookerianum produces

Cymbidium Grand Monarch 'Exquisitum'

The definite genuine article.

Cymbidium Grand Monarch 'Exquisitum'

For years I have been trying to find genuine, disease-free plants of C. Grand Monarch. There are plenty of the genuine article around but not many of them are disease-free. Thats what happens when Stella gives a plant to Rose, who gives a plant to Mariska. I did manage to get a sprouted backbulb from a local grower after pestering him for 5 years. It lived exactly 5 months in my collection before being taken out by 47 degrees Celsius on the 7th of February. I resigned myself to another 5 year search. When I was wandering around my friends greenhouse on the weekend a plant caught my eye. He said, "what is that flowering, another Rosefieldiense?"I took one look at it and knew what it was. Cymbidium Grand Monarch 'Exquisitum'. It was in his son's section of the greenhouse. Not only was it the genuine article it was correctly labelled. After testing, it proved to be virus-free. When we talked to his son he mentioned that he probably had a few of them. Wow, going from desperation to winner in a matter of seconds! Now there is a small plant of C. Grand Monarch 'Exquisitum' sitting alongside some of my other 'Vintage' beauties. What a lucky man I am.

Update!

Since writing this blog, I have taken a couple of more photos that clearly illustrate the difference between Grand Monarch and Rosefieldense. Hope you like them!

Cymbidium Grand Monarch

Cymbidium Rosefieldense

Guess the Hybrid 2 - Parents Found!

I can finally announce that the parents of my Guess the Hybrid blog have been found! The parents are C. Sue and C. Summer Pearl. A quick look at the lineage shows that this cross is a bit incestuous! On the Sue side, C. Peter Pan is the father and C. Showgirl the mother. Peter Pan and a Showgirl? Sounds saucy enough. On the Summer Pearl side, C. Peter Pan is the mother and C. Trigo Royale is the Father. So here we have a hybrid that is half C. Peter Pan just like it's parents! Plants are so indiscriminant with who they mate and in what role.

Cymbidium Summer Pearl

Cymbidium Sue 'Maidstone'

Cymbidium Sue 'Maidstone'

Cymbidium Sue X Summer Pearl

The smaller of two spikes produced
on this first-flowered seedling.

At the moment in the northern hemisphere, Cymbidium flowers are rare. There are a few hybrids and species that flower at this time of year but the main season is well and truly over. Time is at a premium as growers busily repot and spend the majority of their time feeding, watering and keeping critters off their plants. Of course summer is also the time to catch up with family, take holidays and enjoy the weather. Well from what I hear about the east coast of the USA at the moment there is not too much weather to be enjoying!

We here in the southern hemisphere are right in the middle of our Cymbidium season. The ultra-earlies and many of the earlies are finished or finishing and the midseason plants are exerting their influence. We are in Cymbidium Heaven at the moment. Our biggest challenge is keeping up with the staking and grooming. Oh, and taking photographs!

There is a bit of a down-side to the differences in seasons between north and south, especially on the activity on our web-based Cymbidium forum. Most of the members of this web group are from the northern hemisphere. A strong contingent of us are however from the southern hemisphere. At this time of year, we southern hemisphere members are a bit lonely as most of our friends are off doing other, perhaps more interesting pursuits. We l'eft-behind' members try to do all sorts of things to try to encourage our northern friends to pay us web visits.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, one of the little 'games' that we play on the web forum is guess-the-hybrid. George is particularly good at coming up with plants that stump most of the members. Many of these plants are first-flowered seedlings. It is always fascinating to see what the result of a cross is and then work out what the parents are. As with most breeding programs, not all the progeny behave as they should, there are throwbacks, freaks, novel combinations that produce unusual results and sometimes just the odd strange occurrence.

The plant pictured above is my latest contribution to the guess the hybrid game. The clues are:

• The plant is flowering now, June in the southern hemisphere.
• Both parents have been mentioned in previous posts of mine in 2009.
• The plant has bolt upright spikes with about 8-12 flowers (8 on the spike pictured).
• The plant would be classed as an intermediate.
• The parentage would suggest a modicum of warmth tolerance.
• The colour is not what you would expect from crossing the two parents.
  

I hope all of you in the northern hemisphere enjoy this little beauty. When it first came out its full beauty was not appreciated. The true qualities of this plant emerged only after it was brought inside, photographed and then left on the kitchen table. Five weeks later it is still going strong. The smell is almost to the point of overpowering. The morning sun makes the colours sparkle. The subtlety of the colour combinations coupled with the fragrance reminds me of a beautiful Frangipani I recently saw in Adelaide. I am so glad that the advice given to me by a friend, to throw this plant on the compost bin, was not followed. Rightfully so! He now wants a piece of the plant. I think he will be waiting a long time.

Orchid in an unguilded cage

June in this part of the world is one of the most magical of times of the year. Days are short but spectacular. The sun, being at a low angle in the sky, casts the most amazing light over the landscape. The air is filled with humidity. On still, clear nights, heavy dews form and rivers of fog flow down the valleys from the mountains. If the night is lit by a full moon you can see the roiling of the currents in these rivers of white. Actually, you can only see them from the hilltops. Those in the valley are shrouded in the fog. On various nights the depth of the fog rivers vary. On average they fill half the valley leaving the hilltops exposed like islands. You can tell the average fog level by the vegetation that occurs above and below the midpoint. The species composition of these two vegetation types is radically different. Different trees, different shrubs and different wildflowers.

The vegetation of the region is partially dictated by the rivers of fog. The temperature in these fog rivers can be several degrees Celsius cooler than the exposed hilltops. My friends who lives in the flow of one of these fog rivers commonly experiences temperatures up to 10 degrees C. cooler than my place. Frost is common at their house and almost non-existent at mine. Last year they had 40 frosts, we had one. Burt and Sue only live a couple of hundred metres away! You can see their house in the picture below. The ridgeline of their roof is that little bright bit on the left of the photo.

Fog River
(just after sunrise)

On the high dry hills above the fog rivers an abundance of plants thrive. Plants that would die in the frost and humidity of the valleys. Even though these hilltops are crispy-dry in the summer, they have reasonable rainfall in the winter. The Geophytic plants thrive here using their strategy of having underground storage-organs to collect the goodies when they are available and retreat back underground when the times get tough. Several totally unrelated plant families use the geophyte strategy on our little hilltops. Orchids, Lilies and Sundews are the main participants in the seasonal ritual of hide and seek. Pre-eminent of these three groups is the Orchids. Over 55 species occur in just 160 hectares of what most people would think was pretty scrappy dry forest. One of the first species to flower in Autumn is the Tiny Greenhood (Pterostylis parviflora). With flowers less than 1 cm long and the tiniest of leaves it is really hard to see these little devils amongst the jumble of dead leaves and twigs that blanket most of the ground.

Tiny Greenhood (Pterostylis parviflora)

On winter mornings when the fog rivers are flowing, the animals, ever sensible beings, head for the warmer hilltops to bask in the morning sun. Kangaroos graze until the sun is well up and then snooze away the morning sunning themselves. The groups of little twittery birds come up for their morning baths and a bit of breakfast. I should be correct here, these feathered flocks are guilds of unrelated passerine (perching) birds. The groups contain upward of 30-40 individuals of about 10-12 different species. The Tree Creepers hunt bugs under the bark of the trees, starting from the base and working upward. The Sitellas eat the same food but start at the tops of the trees and work down. The Wagtails and Fantails, being flycatchers, do acrobatics as they catch their food in-flight. Buff-rumped, Yellow-rumped, Brown and Striated Thornbills pick invertebrates from the branches and leaves. The melodious tones of the Grey Shrike-thrush ring out after each morsel is consumed from amongst the leaf litter on the ground. The mad twittering mass arrives suddenly, hangs around until everyone has had their bath and in a flash are off to depopulate another area of its critters.

The late arrival, usually by mid-morning, are the White-winged Choughs. They really do deserve their nickname of Larrikins of the Bush. These highly social birds can not do anything on their own and appear to take nothing seriously, except when they launch raiding parties to steal another groups fledglings. Choughs, both young and old, play with their food, are messy eaters and are real gluttons. A Chough will eat just about anything including mouldy bread, compost, any animal matter they can get their beaks into and just about any part of any plant. The birds are real survivors. Oh, I forgot to mention, they show little fear of humans.

Some of the favourite foods of these comical Choughs are the tubers of our beloved geophytes the Orchids Lilies and Sundews. The strategy used by the plants to store carbohydrates provide convenient little packages of concentrated nutrient, ripe for the picking if you can find them. The life strategy of the Choughs is similar to the familiar domestic Chicken; scratch, peck, scratch, peck, dig with beak, peck, scratch. The normal group size of this bird is about 8-12 individuals. A group of this size methodically working through the bush can pretty much collect almost all of the tubers of the orchids in an area that attracts their attention. After they have intensively worked an area they move on.

White-wingd Choughs (Corcorax melanophamphos)

Now a population of 8-12 birds working 50 hectares would be about normal for our area. At this density the plants and invertebrates of the area would have time to recover between despoilings. Many of the geophytes in the area are clonal in nature and form huge colonies by sending out numbers of daughter plants from the the mother, similar to the growth habit of a strawberry but with the runners under the ground. Beth Gott, a famous ethnobotanist, studied recovery rates of greenhood orchids after human harvesting. People find the tubers of orchids yummy as well. Beth found that she could remove half of the tubers of a colony each year without effecting population numbers. The numbers of tubers one year later would be back to where they were before harvest! This didn't allow for expansion of the colony but did not send it toward extinction.

Humans and Choughs go together really well. Choughs are opportunists and humans are wasteful and like to have wildlife around them. When this area was developed, humans moved into the habitat of the Chough. Now with many species, mixing with humans disadvantages the animal. Choughs exploited the opportunity and their numbers increased. Group sizes reached 30 or more members and groups could be supported half the area of the original 8-12 birds. How is this? What is going on here? In short, compost bins and purposeful feeding. Everyone had an open compost bin. This provided a nice daily supply of kitchen scraps and a big dump of stale bread and refrigerator cleanings once a week after the shopping. A few supposed nature lovers enjoyed the humanlike behavour of the Choughs that involved lots of displaying, grooming, napping, squabbling and playing. How to keep them around? A daily feed of bread, wheat or oats.

Problem. What happens when you quadruple the population of an omnivore and then stop their supplemental food supply? They revert to their natural food. The minimal impact they used to have on the orchid population on our little hill turned into a full-on assault and pillaging. When one of the neighbours who daily fed sacks of bread to the Choughs moved out, the orchid population plummeted.

Being an endangered species it was not possible to control the Choughs through direct methods. How to you re-balance an out-of-balance species? We used the multipronged approach. Put simply, covered compost bins, no feeding of Choughs and protect the Geophytes from predation. Unfortunately, this was going to be a long process and there would be further losses of the orchids. Fifteen years later and the populations of Choughs are getting back to their original numbers. This may have been helped by the ten years of drought we have been experiencing. Another negative side effect is the bushland is littered with wire cages, not to keep the Choughs in but to keep them out. The orchids are the ones in the cages.

Wire exclosures protecting colonies of orchids

Within the cages, away from the digging beaks of the Choughs, the orchids thrive and bloom. These delicate little plants, many of them only centimeters tall, carpet the ground inside, but are scattered in ones and two outside the cage, usually with their tubers firmly buried in a crack in a rock or beneath a dense tuft of grass. The fact that they are starting to show up outside of the cages is an encouraging sign. The 'escapees' are a new phenomenon, only appearing in the past few years and corresponding to the drop in Chough numbers.

Nicholls Greenhood (Pterostylis sp. aff. striata)
Inside the cage they thrive.

One of the orchids that occurs in these cages is an undescribed species of Greenhood Orchid that flowers in Autumn. It has gone under various names in the past in an attempt to shoehorn it into an existing described species. It has been called Pterostylis alata, P. striata, P. sp. aff. alata and P. sp. aff. striata, usually with an area description afterwards (e.g. Northeast Melbourne Foothills) . It is presently being formally described and named after a famous orchidologist who wrote the seminal book on The Orchids of Australia.

Flowering well under the cage.

Rosettes growing densely in moss under the cage.

Rosettes are barely 2 cm across but the leaves are
beautifully reticulated with wavy edges.

Several years ago a small colony of Nicholls Greenhood re-appeared after many years of absence. Instead of racing home and grabbing one of the normal wire cages to protect the plants I decided to try something different. This time I took an old dead shrub and placed it over colony. Just enough protection that it would make it difficult for the Choughs to want to bother moving a dead shrub. Leaves are easy to move when you have a beak but not branches. There were three plants when the colony was found four years ago. Three years ago there were 11, two years ago 35, last year 62 and this year I stopped counting at 100. I reckon there are nearly 200 now. Finally an example of expansion not just holding ground. The plants are not as densely packed as the plants in the cages but the individual plants are nearly twice as large. The leaf little builds up faster outside the cages and may alter the distribution of the species within a given population.

Free at last!
Outside the cages.


Looking all happy and perky,
obviously enjoying freedom.

While it is encouraging to see plants escaping from the cages it would be premature to rejoice too much and free the prisoners from their jail. These cages will for the foreseable future be necessary until the plant numbers recover sufficiently to allow natural predation by the Choughs. In the meantime we celebrate little victories.

Ushering in Winter with a blush of pink!

You know winter is approaching when the main flush of early-season pink Cymbidiums start to bloom in May. There are pink Cymbidiums that bloom earlier, a few of which are noteworthy. In April the very beautiful Cymbidium Aunty Mary Kovich 'April Pink' sends up tall thin stems with up to a dozen smallish dark pinkish flowers with a most amazing fragrance. To 'guild-the-lily', so to speak, the floral display is set above a tuft of narrow leaves. I literally mean that the flowers are set above the leaves. Aunty Mary has Cymbidium insigne and C. sinense as its parents, having inherited the 1 m long or longer flower spikes with the flowers in the upper third from each parent. If Aunty Mary flowered in the cooler months instead of the unpredictable and sometimes hot early autumn weather here in Melbourne, it would last longer in flower. Unfortunately, this is not the case. I must say, it is hard to hold this apparent downfall against the plant. When you flower so early, have such an attractive flower and plant and a magnificent fragrance, how could you hold a grudge. If I lived in the mountains instead of the foothills I am sure the flowers would last much longer.

Aunty Mary Kovich 'April Pink'

The breeding of Cymbidium Peter Pan assisted greatly in ushering in a whole series of early-flowered Cymbidiums including the pinks. One might say 'especially the pinks'. Actually, C. Peter Pan was breed in 1957 but was not used sucessfully as a parent until Dr. Donald Wimber converted it to a tetraploid many years later. Progeny before this time were all triploid and unable to carry the breeding any further. The converted form was named C. Peter Pan 'Greensleeves'. Like C. Aunty Mary Kovich, C. Peter Pan has a great Asian summer-flowering species as a parent, namely C. ensifolium. Both C. sinense and C. ensifolium introduce heat tolerance and early flowering to hybrids as well as strong perfume. C. Peter Pan, although a hybrid between C. ensifolium and a standard, cold tolerant Cymbidium, retains autumn flowering with some flowering at other times of the year. The best qualities about C. Peter Pan from a breeders point of view are that: 1.) it is an easy grower 2.) heat/cold tolerant 3.) has upright flower spikes 4.) accepts other colours 5.) is fragrant and 6.) is highly fertile.

Cymbidium Peter Pan 'Greensleeves' 4N

Cymbidium Wendy, bred in 1987, was one of the attempts to introduce pink into the C. Peter Pan line. Get it, Peter Pan and Wendy? Who says orchid breeders don't have a sense of humour. Unfortunately, the other parent used to create Wendy was the pink diploid C. Wondah. Wendy, the progeny of this unfortunate crossing of Peter Pan and Wondah was a triploid and was effectively sterile or at least it failed to produce offspring. It is a great shame that his unfortunate fate would befall such a beautiful plant. Cymbidium Wendy 'Copabella' is an absolutely beautiful pink with a stunning lip. It is a freeflowering, easy to grow plant. In many repects it is like a pink version of C. Peter Pan with flowers that last for 2 months. Cymbidium Peter Pan flowers last barely a month.

Cymbidium Wendy 'Copabella' 3N

A much later pairing of Peter Pan, this time with the dusky pinkish-red C. Winter Fire did produce fertile offspring, the surprisingly popular C. Peter Fire. Now for me this pairing is not an obvious first choice. The colour of many C. Winter Fire is, well, less than clear or bright. The interesting thing about some forms of C. Winter Fire is that they have feathered petals and sepals. This feathering comes in several shades including: white, greyish-white, cream and greyish-pink. C. Peter Pan has an interesting colouring as well. Even though C. Peter Pan is generally green, if flowered in high light it gets slight reddish/brownish shading on the petals and sepals and reddish speckles at the base of the petals. You can imagine the tears from the breeder upon seeing the results of this cross between to 'interestingly' coloured Cymbidiums. Well, the colours did not come out quite as expected but they are 'interesting'. These are normally the words of the breeder putting an optimistic spin on a less than successful cross.

Some of the C. Peter Fire however did turn out passable to the breeder and wildly popular with the buying public. Turns out that womens' tastes in colours are radically different from we menfolk. Dusky pinks and mulberrys predominate with some individual clones with colour that fades as it extends out the petals and sepals. Colour also varies wildly when flowers are opened in high light or low light. A dusky mulberry in high light can fade to a light dusky pink with mulberry spots in low-light conditions. I have a set of C. Peter Fire 'Cutie' exhibiting just this syndrome this year. Last year I purchased a flowering plant of C. Peter Fire 'Fabulous' based on its bright pinkish flowers and red lip, as clearly illustrated on the Valley Orchids website and in their nursery. What a suprise when it flowered this year, obviously under different light conditions. I actually like it better under my light conditions! How's that for a strange turn of events? Breeding with 'interesting' colours can lead to a successful cross.

Cymbidium Peter Fire 'Fabulous'

One of the most successful of the early Cymbidiums and certainly one of the best breeders of high quality early pinks is C. Summer Pearl. This wonderful hybrid is another hybrid of C. Peter Pan, this time using the highly useful C. Trigo Royale. The later of these two hybrids is especially valued by the cut-flower industry because of its lasting qualities of the flowers, especially when cut. One of the issues when using some of the early season species and hybrids, especially those using C. ensifolium, C. erythrostylum, C. sinense and C. tracyanum, are that they do not draw water when cut and barely last a day after removal from the plant. Even though C. Trigo Royale has a high proportion of C. erythrostylum in its heritage the poor keeping qualities have been not only diluted but completely eliminated. There is now a long list of 'earlies' that contain C. Summer Pearl as a parent. One of my favourites at the moment is an un-named hybrid between Summer Pearl and Valley Glory.

Cymbidium Summer Pearl

Cymbidium Summer Pearl X Valley Glory

Before there was Cymbidium Peter Pan to assist in the breeding of early season pinks there was the absolutely beautiful species C. erythrostylum. While C. erythrostylum provided the early flowering characteristic it was C. insigne that provided the lovely pink colour. Cymbidium Albanense, the hybrid between C. erythrostylum and C. insigne provided the key link to a long line of pink hybrids, mainly in the early to mid season. While many of the first forms of C. Albanense were white with red spotted lips, several were a delicate pink. Recent remakes of C. Albanense are a good strong pink and provide exciting opportunities for further improvements of early flowering pinks, especially for miniatures and intermediate types. The characteristic triangular shape of C. erythrostylum and the smaller lip are passed on for several generations. The petals of C. erythrostylum close in over the column but when crossed with species or hybrids with more open form these broad petals open out in the progeny and give after a few generations what are classed as the 'rounded shape' that we have come to accept as the standard.

Cymbidium erythrostylum 'Dale'

One of the most recent hybrids to come out of Andy Easton's breeding stable is the very lovely C. Plum Village X C. Flying Colors. This is a very interesting little plant. Little is apt as the whole plant in full flower is only about 35 cm tall with about a dozen smallish, perky but well formed flowers. What is fascinating about this plant is the strong influence of C. erythrostylum. You can just look at it and see the original species in it. The parentage is actually very complex with C. erythrostylum, C. Alexanderi, C. floribundum (pumilum) and a range of other large-growing species and hybrids in its ancentry. The repeated use of pure white and pink petaled species and hybrids has lead to an unbelievably clear pink in the petals and sepals of this little cutie.

Cymbidium Plum Village X C. Flying Colors

Recently, I went to Adelaide to give a talk to the local Cymbidium Club. I was to give a talk on the influence of the old awarded plants, those species and hybrids awarded by the RHS between the 1880's to 1930. One of the reasons I wanted to talk about such an obscure topic was to highlight how these plants could still play a role in modern hybridizing. When looking through the collection of hybrid seedlings in the greenhouse at the moment, there were many of these 'Vintage' plants used as parents even though the crosses using them were made in the past couple of years.

While in Adelaide a wonderful man named Peter Hall and his Cymbidium club friend Wayne Baylis where my tour guides. I showed up at Peters house for a good day out looking at other peoples collections. He was a bit disparaging of his own collection and assumed that there would be nothing that I would be interested in. It could not have been further from the truth! Sitting there right outside of his back door was a plant I had been looking for for years, the serenely beautiful Cymbidium Osborn (C. erythrostylum X C. dayanum). By chance one of the people we were going to visit was the breeder of C. Osborn, the very individualistic Malcolm Osborn. This man has taken the brave and forward-thinking step and moved solely into the growing and breeding of miniature Cymbidiums. His collection was stunning and immaculately maintained. He was kind enough to provide me with a very healthy division of the plant of my desire.

Cymbidium Osborn 'Pink Mist'

Cymbidium Osborn 'Pink Mist'

One of the older hybrids that shows the C. erythrostylum influence and the beautiful pink colour is appropriately named 'Rosie'. Now 'Rosie' is not an officially recognised name but this stunning plant has been doing the rounds for many years. It comes out of the now defunct stable of Cecil Park Orchids. Although never named, the parentage of this hybrid is well known, namely, Earlyana X Henry Davis. The influence of C. erythrostylum is clearly evident in the broad, upward swept petals and triangular shape of the overall flower. This shape influence is not surprising as 'Rosie' is only three steps away from erythrostylum through the C. Earlyana parent. Cymbidium Earlyana is a hybrid between C. Early Bird and C. Louisiana. Cymbidium Early Bird is half C. erythrostylum. The other major influence in 'Rosie' is the wonderfully bizarre and highly fragrant C. tracyanum, itself a very early bloomer.

A couple of the nicest aspects of C. 'Rosie' are the vibrant colours and strong fragrance. The size of the flower and plant is well within the range of the normal standard types. the flower spike is over a metre tall and the flowers a good 10 cm across. Can you smell it by just looking at the picture? I can. The french have a name for that syndrome but for the life of me can't think of the word at the moment.

Cymbidium 'Rosie' (Earlyana X Henry Davis)

Sometimes an un-named plant comes into my posession that I know one of the parents but do not have a clue about the others that are listed. Going on trust you have to assume that the breeder knew what they were doing when they made the cross. Suspicion can be raised in the mind when one of the parents is itself un-named. One such plant recently came to live with me. The name on the label was (Sylvania X Palaker) X Musita. In this case the plant was not chosen because of the parentage but because when I walked into the sales shed of a local breeder and grower the plant jumped out at me. Not literally, but the colour was so clear and intense and the habit of the plant so attractive that I had to purchase it. The breeder was not originally going to sell it because he wanted it for himself. I love his wife for talking him out of keeping it. I have yet to work out its full heritage but it is clear from the little research that I have done that there is not a trace of C. Peter Pan in there anywhere. Interestingly, the parents were originally bred in 1970, 1976 and 1961 respectively. Here we go with the old hybrids playing a role in modern breeding! Needless to say, C. erythrostylum plays a large part in this hybrid through its grandparents parents C. Stanley Fouraker and C. Early Bird.

cymbidium (Sylvania X Palaker) X Musita

Cymbidium (Sylvania X Palaker) X Musita

Cymbidium (Cherry something. I can't read my own writing!)

My friend Julians plant is also a real stunner. A standard by classification but far from standard in looks. I wrote down the name incorrectly, which is something that happens when overly excited. This plant is pretty stunning in real life! Looks like this hybrid is probably a cross between the C. Peter Pan and C. erythrostylum lines of breeding. It is certainly a fragrant early season pink with broad upward swept petals! I am only guessing though. Will have to follow up on this one.

Seeing Red - Cymbidium Ruby Eyes and friends

Cymbidium Ravishing Beauty 'Black Silk'

The breeding of true red in Cymbidiums has been a goal of many growers since the inception of hybridization in the genus. One of the first 'Red' Cymbidiums was C. Ceres 'F. C Hanbury'. There is considerable doubt over the true identity of good old 'F. C. Hanbury' but it remains one of the true studs of red breeding. Remakes of C. Ceres, as you can see from the pictures below, are not even close to red, more a pink overlay on yellow or a slightly reddish brown. It is hard to imagine the dark rich colours of today's complex hybrids coming from such lowly beginnings.

Cymbidium Ceres 2N

Cymbidium Ceres 'Florence Mausteller' 4N

A very productive line of breeding in reds was kicked off by the production of Cymbidium Ruby Eyes. In 1978, the year C. Ruby Eyes was registered, and the period shortly thereafter, Australia had a bit of a reputation for the production of red hybrids. I remember visiting several orchid nurseries in the early 1980's specifically to see what were rumoured to be some of the best red cymbidiums in the world. Wondabah Orchids was one of these nurseries. Needless to say C. Ruby Eyes came out of the stable of this once world reknown orchid nursery.

Cymbidium Ruby Eyes is the offspring of the most unlikely of parents. Imagine crossing a large showbench standard with intense colour with a miniature species. It is like crossing a Great Dane with a Chihuahua! Luckily, the pod parent was C. floribundum (pumilum) that great species that is not very descriminating with regard to who it will mate with. Unfortunately, if the 2N forms are used there can be problems with sterility in the resulting progeny. The other parent was C. Sensation, another good breeder. Another child of C. Sensation is the beautiful C. Flame Hawk. Below are two examples to give you some sort of idea of what the parents looked like. Neither of the plants pictured are the actual cultivars used to produce C. Ruby Eyes but are probably not far off.

Cymbidium floribundum 'Sina'

Cymbidium Sensation 'Purple Perfection'

The marriage between C. floribundum and Sensation created quite a stir. Here was a match made in heaven. One of the qualities of C. Sensation that contributed to the success of C. Ruby Eyes is that although the flowers are large and quite normal for a standard the plants are relatively small. Another interesing feature of C. Sensation is that the pseudobulbs are remarkably round, halfway between the size of a handball and a tennis ball. The leaves are relatively narrow for a standard.

There are numerous cultivars of C. Ruby Eyes doing the rounds in the orchid world. The most famous of these is C. Ruby Eyes 'Red Baron'. I will get back to this cultivar in a minute. It is worthwhile to note that there are actually better quality cultivars such as: 'Royal Show', 'Tokushima', 'Paradisea' the list goes on. There are also imposters going under the name of 'Red Baron' . Some growers have taken on the task of coming up with an improved C. Ruby Eyes by remaking the original cross but using different parents. The results have been variable but have not really been an improvement on the original. Several of the original cross are still floating around but have never been named. One of these is a plant that I have grown for years. It did not meet the standard of being a red but it is a pretty plant none-the-less. It will never get bred with because it has a flaw that can be passed on. See if you can work out what the flaw is from the picture below. No it is not a virus that is the problem. I reckon this cultivar actually has a very beautiful labellum, much more clearly and delicately marked than any cultivar I have seen.

Cymbidium Ruby Eyes

Cymbidium Ruby Eyes 'Royal Show'

Cymbidium Ruby Eyes 'Royal Show'

The problem is a that some cultivars suffer from partial petal peloria. This shows up as color breaks in the petals, or in the case of my pretty little plant, callus ridges occurring on the petals. Although in fully peloric flowers these callus ridges would be yellow or white, like those on the normal labellum, those on my plant are a deep black/red. You can also see a partial colour break on the left petal of the centre flower.

This partial peloria can be passed on to progeny. Several hybrids of C. Ruby Eyes, can exhibit this genetic fault. Some that I have seen this mutation occur in are Radiant Ruby, Ruby Doll, Ten Pin and Inky Dink. In one group of seedlings that I have flowered out of the hybrid C. Ruby Eyes X Fascella there were a few that strongly exhibited odd petals. Have a look at the centre flower and the one immediately above it in one of my plants. You can see the deformity along the upper edges of the petals.

Cymbidium Ruby Eyes X Fascella

Cymbidium Ten Pin can also exhibit partial peloria but only in some individual plants. Two examples are giving below. The first plant is normal and shows no signs of genetic faults. The second has the remnants of calli on the petals as evidenced by the dark red base to the petals tapering through the whole of the petal.

Cymbidium Ten Pin (normal)

Cymbidium Ten Pin (slight petal mutation)

While many people see Peloria as an interesting phenomenon, I find it a deformity. There are some collectors out there that have collections of both Petal and Sepal Pelorics. To me it is the equivalent of Hip Displasia in German Shepherds. The kennel clubs try to eliminate from the breeding program dogs that exhibit the trait. Maybe we should do the same if we want to breed stable, high quality plants. To this end, I make the outlandish suggestion that we should eliminate C. Ruby Eyes 'Red Baron' from future breeding. I qualify this by adding that those 'Red Baron' with the petal deformity. There is strong evidence that not all the 'Red Baron' out there are the genuine cultivar. If you need an example of this go to your friendly web-based image browser and see the variation in what is called C. Ruby Eyes 'Red Baron'. Be particularly careful when purchasing meristem produced plants. Mass multiplication of orchids through meristem culture is known to cause genetic deformities, many of which are undesirable. Cymbidium Ruby Eyes 'Red Baron' is one of those plants that is mass produced by meristem propagation.

Plants bred either directly or indirectly from C. Ruby Eyes now number in the hundreds. C. Ruby Eyes alone has been used as a pod parent at least 15 times and as a pollen parent at least 80 times. This plant is still being used in breeding programs and will probably continue to contribute for years to come. Its primary use is in the breeding of red pendulous, minitures and intermediate Cymbidiums. This large number of offspring and it's continued use in breeding programs is remarkable considering it is 31 years old. That is amazing staying power for any hybrid. Hopefully if we continue to use this outstanding plant we will select and use cultivars that do not exhibit genetic mutations. If we use 'clean' plants of C. Ruby Eyes and its offspring we will certainly be in-the-black financially but in-the-red in regard to high quality, high colour cymbidiums.

Just as a post script, Here is a picture of one of the offspring of C. Sensation, the very beautiful C. Flame Hawk.

Cymbidium Flame Hawk 'Lipper'

(flower just opening)

Blood Flowers - Haemanthus

September of 1981 was a turning point in my life. It was the start of a year-long field study of orchids in the wild. My supervisor Phil Cribb and I had worked out an itinerary and meticulously planned out places to visit, people to see, where my monies would be deposited and what tasks would be carried out. Part of my task was to collect plants, both living and pressed, that would eventually make their way back to the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. There was a bit of argy bargy working out where to go. Phil wanted me to carry out an extension of his work on various groups of orchids in Australia and the Pacific Islands. My dreams and ambitions had always focused on Africa and Asia. Jane Goodall was a hero of mine and in my young mind visualized myself exploring the African bush finding and working with strange and unusual plants. There was also the desire to follow in the steps of the great collectors of the 19th century and discover wonders in the mountains of Thailand, Vietnam, and India. What is the saying? Be careful what you wish for it may come true. They did come true.

After boarding the plane at Heathrow Airport it was a relatively short trip to Durban in South Africa. The destination of Durban does not seem like a logical first choice to see orchids in the wild but the Orchid Congress being held there was a good incentive! An orchid congress is a great place to meet all sorts of orchid freaks, see an amazing array of plants and listen to a very large number of orchid talks. It was little piggy in orchid heaven. All day and night the conversations focused on orchids.

Being such a young thing in a world of much older people posed certain problems. Most of the participants were three times my age. Pierre and Thelma Joubert came to the rescue. They were the organisers of the congress and were not only well organised but extremely generous and friendly. Pierre kept me more than busy the whole time I was there. Thelma introduced me to people and their plant collections. Their fellow committee members Lance and Carmen also provided numerous opportunities to participate. Carmen asked if I would like to be steward on the Oncidium Alliance judging panel. The yes flew out of my mouth before she even finished her sentence!

One night while we were having drinks and nibblies Pierre asked me to come along on their post-congress trip. One of the members had to cancel and there was a spare ticket. This involved a break in my itinerary but Phil agreed to it. A trip to the private game park Motswari sounded a great idea. Not only could I see orchids but all the African Wildlife as well. Frank and Ruth Shride from the USA would be accompanying us to work on an article. They were writing an article for National Geographic on the white lions of Motswari. You can imagine how inadequate I felt in the company of such luminaries. Thankfully, I don't suffer from shyness and the others did not suffer from egomania. The stories from that trip will have to wait for another post but suffice to say we saw heaps of plants.

When we got back to Durban I spent a few more days traveling around the local area with Pierre and Thelma's son Richard. He was only slightly older than me and just as friendly as his parents. We travelled north and south, about as far as you can go in one day and still be back for dinner. The plants we saw were fantastic. Streptocarpus, Protea, Strelitzia, Erica, Aloe, heaps of bulbous plants and of course orchids. I didn't know there were so many Eulophia species!

The next leg of my journey took me to Johannesburg. The change in altitude played havoc with me. Five-thousand feet does not seem like a very high elevation but for someone who never really spent much time above an elevation of 500 feet, it was a great change. The head spun, the stomach churned and all I wanted to do was sleep. Thankfully, that only lasted a couple of days. My host, Daniel Kleynhans, was not only gracious but understanding. Daniel delivered me to the Botanic Gardens where I was to meet up with Doug McMurtry. Doug had organised a trip that would see himself, myself and an artist named Barbara Jeppe tripping up to the Drakensburg Mountains in search of various plants.

Barbara was an absolute hoot to travel with. We would be belting along at 80 Km an hour down some dirt track in the middle of nowhere and Barbara would scream out 'Stop!'. Doug would slam on the anchors, stop and then reverse until Barbara commanded him to 'Stop'!. The doors of the car would fly open and Doug and I would rush like mad people following a madly smoking crazy woman across a dusty treeless plain looking for God-knows-what. Thankfully, the very first time she did this we came across a ripper of a plant, Boophone disticha. Boophone has a large , perfectly-rounded heads of hundreds of scarlet flowers on a naked stem that shoots straight out of the earth. At flowering time the leaves are totally dead and in most cases missing. This was just the first of many beautiful bulbs, orchids and other fabulous plants that we would come across. We got a thrill every time Barbara screamed.

As I said at the start of this post my trip to South Africa was a turning point in my life. It also made a huge impact on my life choices. Since that auspicious trip, my interest in South African plants has become and remained strong. That very first sighting of Boophone lead to my life-long interest in South African Amaryllidaceae and Amaryllidaceae as a whole. Seeing Pelargonium and Aloe in the wild, subsequently lead to nice collections of these appearing in my garden. Interestingly, there is a pot containing Boophone disticha sitting on the corner of my verandah just outside the kitchen window.

Every Autumn there is a strong reminder in my garden of my trip to South Africa. The first of the South African Amaryllidaceae to flower are the Haemanthus species, followed by Amaryllis and finally by a three month long eye-popping flowering of the various Nerine. Below are just a couple of species of Haemanthus that grace my garden. These two species flower regularly and easily. Several other species in the genus and in my garden require fire to burn over the top of their bulbs to stimulate flowering.

Haemanthus coccineus Form 1

Haemanthus coccineus Form 2

Haemanthus albiflos Broad-leaved, early-flowering form.