A Phalaenopsis Pathway Less Traveled
Andy Easton
I
write this with considerable trepidation! I know little
about the genus Phalaenopsis and have fallen into a quest
that seems rather more daunting than I initially anticipated. Hopefully you Phalaenopsis fanatics will overlook my
inexperience and forgive any of my misconceptions about the
genus you love.
Several years ago I was encouraged by one of the major
orchid companies to have a little “dabble” in Phalaenopsis,
specifically by sourcing some interesting primaries and then
using them in hybrids which might phenotypically be different to the common flower type of today. They were specific
in their instructions that I not use plants extant in their own
breeding stock. I became acquainted with Manote of Tropical Exotique in Thailand and ordered a bunch of primary hybrids from him plus several sib-crossings of species I knew
about. Unfortunately, none of the crosses were treated with
oryzalin (pre-emergence herbicide that is used for laboratory
chromosome doubling) so I am starting at the diploid level,
something I never do in other genera like Cymbidium or the
Odontoglossum Alliance.
Floricultura Pacific kindly babysat me through the deflasking and growing to maturity and I then selected certain plants,
largely based on their foliar habit. These plants were essentially just over twelve months from flask and I noticed that even
in the 28C pre-blooming environment, two crosses were already blooming profusely. I love front-runners and both were
labeled as Phal. minus offspring. Now I did not know Phal.
minus from a petunia and indeed, Christenson (†) now calls
it Phal. finleyi (I kind of like minus for a name!) but I certainly
saw lots to like about its progeny. They are certainly not losers!
In the regular greenhouse, most all of the selected seedlings
have now bloomed and been subjected to a much more severe
culling. In essence, I am down to about 35 mature plants that
I am “fiddling” with. Some have pods that will soon be sent
for sowing and others are barely at the 45 day stage. There are
some second generation crosses between selected primaries
and these will all be treated with oryzalin for ploidy doubling
if germination is achieved. We have also out-crossed some
of these primaries to a few selected complex Phal. hybrids
that have been accumulated over the years. You know as I get
rapidly older, the short generational time for Phalaenopsis is
quite appealing!
What I would like to do is make a few comments on some of
the plants we are working with and show photos of each grex
to support the comments. I am about as inexpert a photogra-
pher as I am at anything else so when you see a classy photo,
it was made by Ramon de los Santos and if it is borderline,
blame “yours truly”!
One thing that has really shocked me is that so many of these
primaries have never gone anywhere. Were there fertility issues or did the fashions of the day just move in other directions? So, in no particular order, a few interesting primary
Phalaenopsis hybrids. [Color illustrations - Inside front cover]
1. Phalaenopsis (finleyi × mariae) ‘New Horizon’: Ultra-compact plants, actually over-potted in 4” pots, some have up to
four inflorescences already. I also noted that the earlier flowering gave rise to numerous keikis. We are trying crosses widely
with this little cutie. Flower life is in the 3-4 week range so we
must improve this substantially. The grex is still unregistered.
2. Phalaenopsis (finleyi × cornu-cervi) #1: Again very modest
foliage and lots of flowers. More color but so far, not shaping
up to be an easy breeder. The grex was just registered by S.
Pornpanitphan as Krabi Paradise, I’m sure others will be trying hard to advance it also!
3. Phalaenopsis Hans Christiansen (gigantea × lindenii) #1:
What I love about this one is the longer, well-spaced inflorescence. OrchidWiz shows no registered progeny so maybe it’s
a tough one but the leaf habit is quite compact and we will be
trying it widely.
4. Phalaenopsis Gentleman Jack (gigantea × tetraspis) #1: An
interesting flower in that it is of ext