What's In A Name?

[ronaldhanko]

No problem.

[utah]

Thank you so much from this "newbie"!

[Yoyo_Jo]

Ron - that's a good article. And Ramon, your additional comments are very informative as well.

Thanks.

Joanne

[rcod09]

When i got my orchid they never told me anything about it and it had nothing to identify it. But now thanks to this article i now know she's a Cattleya gaskelliana semi-alba (Agatha : D) but it said something about mendelii too so...

[ronaldhanko]

Cattleya gaskelliana and mendelii are very closely related species that are often hard to differentiate. Some consider them to be variations of a single species. You might want to check this thread: http://www.orchidboard.com/community...a-warneri.html

[bodaciousbonsai]

Lc. laelia cattleya high light
blc. brassavola laelia cattleya again high light
dm dracula masdevillia low light
another words learn the light,air,humidity,and medium requirements of the plants you are buying or want to buy. hybrids are forgiving, I only grow micro miniature miniature orchis species. species also vary on culture conditions

[masda]

A wealth of information on a very important subject, noids are almost useless as a orchid to make a cross, you may have a wonderful coloured plant that could be crossed with another of the same species and perhaps breed a winner, but it would be useless as a show plant and would not be registered.Painstaking research may track down a name if you get lucky. But if you like the plant then there is reason not to grow it.

[Ray]

First, a clarification of the Example N°2 in the article above: In order to avoid confusions (I saw this discussion in another forum!) we must say that giving a name to a clon, as for example aunt 'Queenie' and aunt 'Leonie' also has a rule to be followed: If you give a name, only to differenciate a plant in your collection from another one, you add the name you want, but it is valid only for you. The name becomes official ONLY when that particular plant is awarded by an Orchid Society and allowed to receive a clonal name.

Sorry Ramon, but that is not true.

If an individual give a name to a cultivar, it is official at that point. (You are correct that it stays with that plant and all of its asexually-derived duplicates - i.e., divisions or clones - and it is not ethical to change it once it exists.)

If a plant gets an award, it MUST have a cultivar name, but that does not make it any more official.

[orchideric]

Hello all,

To keep track of botanical names go to the International Plant Name Index (just google IPNI). This is an incredible resource and up to date within a few days of publications (in contrast, the Kew Monocot Checklist is at least 2 years behind). IPNI will give you the equivalent names but without any opinion on which is currently in vogue. Thus is you ask for Epidendrum cochleatum it will give you the equivalents Encyclia cochleata, Prosthechea cochleata and Anacheilium cochleatum and their places of publication.

It is far and away the internet database that I use most frequently.

Hope that helps, Eric