Phalaenopsis Journal First Quarter Vol. 21(3) 2012 | Page 25

growers were focusing on some of the same lines that I
was working on. Watching parallel crosses to my own cre-
ated and registered often only a few months before mine
bloomed, I knew I needed to either get a step ahead or go
down a slightly different path if I wante d to maintain any
kind of strategic advantage. It was during this time that
some observations started pushing me in a different direc-
tion than other hybridizers and my breeding program took
on a life of its own. By that point, I had collected as many
different coerulea Phal. species and hybrids as possible.
This was the time period when I was focused on breeding
with Phal. equestris var. cyanochilus and Phal. tetraspis.
Most of the successful Taiwanese breeding revolved
around Dor. pulcherrima var. coerulea. There were some
limited cases where breeding with Kenneth Schubert re-
sulted in coerulea progeny such as Tzu Chiang Lilac (Ken-
neth Schubert × Tzu Chiang Tetralitz). During this time
period a coerulea Dor. pulcherrima with an almost grape
purple lip was used extensively by a few hybridizers with
a good amount of success and it appears that most of the
good coerulea crosses from Taiwanese breeders can be
traced back this specific strain of Dor. pulcherrima. We
have only recently been able to get that strain into the
United States to start breeding with it.
Now getting back to that pivotal point in 2006, this was
the same time period the Nortons’ new indigo strain of
Phal. violacea was coming onto the scene. It literally ap-
peared to be the holy grail of coerulea Phalaenopsis with
extremely saturated indigo pigmentation. There was both
a rush to get seedlings from HP’s crosses and a renewal
of interest in hybridizing coerulea phals. I also jumped on
the bandwagon and acquired a few seedlings from Frank
Smith’s cross coming from the Nortons’ indigo Phal. viola-
cea line and later acquired more seedlings from the Nor-
tons. In July of 2006, I bloomed my first indigo Phal. viola-
cea, the cultivar ‘Sapphire’s Navy’, from Frank Smith’s cross.
This was the orchid that helped me push past the previous
poor performance of my early crosses. It appeared as if the
stage was being set for a brand new generation of superior
coerulea Phalaenopsis. There was a great deal of excite-
ment and speculation as to what the new indigo violaceas
would mean. While I think our excitement within the hy-
bridizing community was well placed, the theories behind
it were still ill conceived and could not have been further
from reality. There was a missing piece of the coerulea ge-
netics puzzle that we still had not discovered, but we were
getting closer.
The first crosses with the indigo violaceas were made to
other coerulea phals. I first started making some of the
more obvious crosses pairing my indigo violaceas with
coerulea Dor. pulcherrima, Kenneth Schubert and Purple
Phalaenopsis - First Quarter, Vol. 21(3) 2012
Martin. Every single one of mine bloomed out magenta
and talking with the Nortons’, they were having the same
problem. I had remade Phal. Equalacea using different
Phal. equestris and coerulea violaceas several times over
the years also with the same results, more magenta flowers.
But I made one more attempt at creating a coerulea Phal.
Equalacea, this time crossing Phal. equestis var. cyanochi-
lus ‘Martel’s Blue’ with Phal. violacea var. indigo ‘Sapphire’s
Navy’ in September 2006. I did not know it at the time, but
I had just made the cross that would be my holy grail.
In October of 2008, the first of these very fast growing
Phal. Equalacea seedlings were in spike and I watched very
carefully for any sign of coeruleas. On October 19th, 2008,
the first bloom was starting to open and it was a deep indi-
go coerulea. I can’t fully describe the excitement that rever-
berated through our hybridizing community. Not only was
this the first time that a coerulea form of Phal. Equalacea
had been bloomed out, but it was also the first hybrid made
with an indigo Phal. violacea to also bloom out a true coe-
rulea. While I have had some really great successes with
coerulea hybrids since then, this cross is still my favorite
to date. It inherited the flower count from Phal. equestris
and the form, color and wonderful spicy fragrance from
the indigo Phal. violacea. Luckily during the period of time
when I made this cross I was colchicine treating seedlings
of any cross that I felt had potential. I ended up with both
diploids and tetraploid indigo Phal. Equalacea. This cross
was so unique; it was registered with the RHS as the sub-
grex Sapphire’s Indigo Equalacea. Most recently in Octo-
ber 2011 one of the tetraploid cultivars ‘Anacepa Beryl’ was
awarded an AM the San Marino AOS judging center.
Seeking to build on this line of breeding, I’ve since made
many crosses using these Equalaceas. The first to bloom
was Phal. Louise Burns (Equalacea x indigo violacea) on
Sept 2, 2011 named after my grandmother. This cross is
also coerulea and I’m very hopeful that there will be many
more coerulea crosses to come from this line of breeding.
As I write this article, a few more new crosses are in spike.
Between now and 2008, there were a few other less sig-
nificant successful coerulea crosses to bloom out. Dtps. Pe-
ter Blue Sky proved to be a great pairing of Siam Treasure
and Dor. pulcherrima that kept the best of both parents
without the poor vigor of Siam Treasure. By this point, I
was starting to get enough data to start seeing some trends
that began to validate some emerging theories. This would
eventually give us a better understanding of the genetics
behind the inheritance of coerulea pigments in Phals. I was
still trying to piece a few things together, but it appeared
that I understood the process well enough to now reason-
ably predict when a cross would and would not bloom out
coerulea. The wildcard that became apparent was that any
25