What's in a name?

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by Kmolson126

Do you think it’s helpful to have a membership to AOS when starting out?

Yes - there is a lot of good information in Orchids, the monthly magazine, and also on the website (some of which is in the Members Only area) Not a lot of money (the price of maybe 2-3 plants), a good investment.

---------- Post added at 11:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:29 AM ----------

As you get seriously hooked on orchids, you'll want to get down into the weeds to learn more about them. The named hybrids (like C. Gaudii) are registered with the Royal Horticultural Society in the UK, the "master database" - the entire pedigree of the plant can then be traced back to the species that went into it. And knowledge about the habitat in which the species grew can give you information about how to grow the hybrid. orchidroots.com is a very good place to look up the parentage of a hybrid, and here's one more valuable reference... orchidspecies.com (Internet Orchid Photo Encyclopedia) with information about the species.

A hint in interpreting names... hybrids (human-made) have the grex name capitalized. Species are lower-case. So (assuming that they are labeled correctly) you can tell the difference upfront.

For example: C Gaudii is a hybrid of two species, C. loddigesii x C. tigrina . If you look up the habitats of the two species, you will find that both parents are fairly cold-tolerant (down to 40 deg F/4 deg C or thereabouts, though you might have to fudge a bit...) That information tells me that I can grow the species, and the hybrid, in my southern California backyard. Your conditions, of course, are different... but that's idea, knowledge is power!