Catasetum xtapiriceps Jan Phal

[Bruno De Toni]

This plant has been found by my good friend Jan Phal on a palm tree a few years ago in his home. I received the plant last year and we did not have pictures of it since it was found. With so many different catasetums species in a few private collections, natural hybridization with local macrocarpum is very much more common now with very interesting and beatifull results. This plant is really cool and nice and I like it very much, and I cannot understand why macrocarpum is not commonly used in hybridization for the main catasetinae commercial nurseries.

[isurus79]

Wow! It looks like a denticulatum that became an expansum hybrid. I really like that one a lot! Congrats on finding a real beauty.

[kavanaru]

hhhmmm.... Bruno, are you sure one of the parents is macrocarpum? the "hole" in the middle of the lip is too deep and squared for (IMO) it to be a macrocarpum child. It does not resemble at all a first primary xtapiriceps or Splendens (I am assuming primary for the record of simplification!)

Those "squared" deprerssions on the lips are more typical of the saccatum/osculatum group... it would be interesting to self it and see what the next generation brings up: maybe some plants closer to their parent?

however, a very nice Catasetum.... a pity it is a NOID!

Can you please place these photos in the Group Catasetinae in Flickr for discussion?

[Gena]

Really beautiful Catasetum, Bruno.
But I agree with Ramón – personally I wouldn’t put it to x tapiriceps, despite its extreme variability.

[Bruno De Toni]

Originally Posted by kavanaru

hhhmmm.... Bruno, are you sure one of the parents is macrocarpum? the "hole" in the middle of the lip is too deep and squared for (IMO) it to be a macrocarpum child. It does not resemble at all a first primary xtapiriceps or Splendens (I am assuming primary for the record of simplification!)

Those "squared" deprerssions on the lips are more typical of the saccatum/osculatum group... it would be interesting to self it and see what the next generation brings up: maybe some plants closer to their parent?

however, a very nice Catasetum.... a pity it is a NOID!

Can you please place these photos in the Group Catasetinae in Flickr for discussion?

Ok guys let me tell you something, when the flowers were closed they had the typical macrocarpum shape, actually I expected typical xtapiriceps flowers (those who have not the trident spikes on the lip). But when they were opening something interesting happens, they began to resupinate or rotate adopting the present shape. The lip has the yellow color and asserate borders of the macrocarpum and also the spots, to me no doubt about one parent is macrocarpum. About the hole I would not be worry so much because macrocarpums have it quite pronounced. Then here comes next question which is the other parent, well looking the shape of the petals and sepals is more probable a pileatum or a complex pileatum hybrid. Another important issue is which of the parents was the pod or polen parent and depending of this you may have different shapes. Thi is one interpretation of the problem, but in any case I am very open to hear opinions of anybody (specially for you two guys) who can give some other solutions. Finally I was very much surprised with such a nice plant. I will load the pics with more resolution in to my flick page tonight for discussions.

[Gena]

Well,Bruno, my first, spontaneous reaction when I saw pictures was like “what a beautiful hybrid, but may be not a x tapiriceps”. Total appearance of the flowers is somewhat different …. I can’t put my finger on it but something else is there. I do not exclude macrocarpum as a parent. As I know, there is one major reason for using Catasetum macrocarpum in hybridisation and this is adding colour (yellow or red, depending on used variety) to hybrids. It is a case on shown flowers, so, there is possibility that colour comes from macrocarpum. Furthermore, if I understood correctly Catasetum macrocarpum is quite common specie in Venezuela, which is another imaginable reason to not discard macrocarpum as probable parent.
Then, as you said, sepals and petals resemble those of pileatum. Well, yes, they do, especially petals in my eyes, but not necessarily.
What is really odd in shown flowers is, as Ramón noted, is orifice and to be more precise its shape. Pileatums do have almost round ones. And actually very few species have more or less rectangular shaped orifice. One Catasetum, about which I start thinking directly, is Catasetum saccatum. The trapezoid form of its orifice is one of the major characteristics used for identification, especially when compared with closely related species, such as osculatum (in this case the orifice is “oval-ish”). So, that was the reason for me to assume that maybe there is something else in this hybrid.

[kavanaru]

well, Gena has explained it very well.. furthermore, if you see the "white border" of the orifice, it also resembles somehow that on saccatum/incurvum...

The petals indeed could be somehow "pileatum", but also not necessarily, as other species can have similar petals (e.g. expansum). And the "wide" lip could also have something else than pileatum in it, maybe expansum or, since the proportion labellum to flower seems quite small, something like vinaceum or denticulatum?

I have been going (mentally) through all the pics I could remember to have seen, and somehow I think I have seen something similar... I need to do some research...

I think what we have here is the result of the pollen of some hybrid which was spread by bees into "Ctsm. macrocarpum" or something...it could also be that the hybrid is the one bringing the colors (due to macrocarpum in its background!) or maybe also the seeds of a more complex hybrid which has scaped... no way to know...

[Bruno De Toni]

I understand your points guys on this matter and of course there are a lot of doubts about the parents of this hybrid, however I am almost convinced that one of the parents is macrocarpum, the other one who knows. But I would like to point out that people here who cultivate catasetinae can be counted with the fingers of one hand, however if one of these collectors brings a foreign plant then the pandora box opens and strange crossing start to occurs. In any case I keep simple my thoughts considering this plant potentially x tapiriceps, why because is not easy to buy foreign plants here, most of catasetinae collectors buy venezuelan plants to local dealers, so one of the parents it may not be only pileatum but who knows an xdunsterville or something else. I am including a new pics here.

[kavanaru]

ok, in this pictures you can better see the influence of macrocarpum (or other Gnome hooded species ), but the rest of the lip continues beeing to aberrant...

and even if difficult to obtain foreign plants, you know there are indeed foreign plants in CCS this could have happened here...

now, I know (and am a big supporter of thi shypothesis) that xtapiriceps is a very complex hybrid and that very often we have xtapiriceps plants in teh wild, which cannot be supported by the only macrocarpum x pileatum parents, making a big box "of whatever what I cannot identify" plants. But, shouldn't we try to keep to the macrocarpumxpileatum (no matter in which combination) when naming our plants? I still insist that this labellum has something else more than macro-pile, and I see more and more saccatum/incurvum in it

[Gena]

Great pictures, Bruno!
I really like it!

I did try to find some pictures of Catasetum Pierre Loti, a hybrid from 2001 done by Marcel Lecoufle and it is a hybrid between macrocarpum and saccatum. But, unfortunately, no success so far. May be someone do have a picture of it? It would be rather interesting to see it, I think.