Quote:
Originally Posted by Jan Pahl
Rosim, sometimes is said that pinkish forbesii's are in someway natural hybrids, and only green to light-tan forbesii's are "true" species.
Is that true?????.
I ask this because some "color forms" in some species only occur inside populations that could have few "extra" genes added to the species, for example red and yellow in Guarianthe aurantiaca only occur in places where "pure" aurantiaca in fact can also have "a little touch" of Skinneri via "guatemalensis".
Thanks
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The first thing that comes to mind when one of these pinksh varieties is seen is that it had the help of C. intermedia sometime in the past. This possibility is not out of purpose, of course. But, if it happened, it must have been a long time ago, because the pinkish varieties show no traces of intermedia other than the lavender/pink sufusion. Cattleya intermedia from my region (São Paulo) is a distinct, tall race of plants, easily reaching 50cm high, very often more than this. They are very different from those small intermedias from the south regions (Rio Grande do Sul). It would be reasonable to find pinkish varieties here in São Paulo with intermediate plants, taller than forbesii and smaller than intermedia, but this does not happen, they are all short plants. So, if intermedia contributed, it was a long time ago.
It is difficult to consider pure forbesii only the green flowers because there is the variety 'punctata', which is speckled of purple on the petals and sepals, and this would be a strong evidence that the anthocyanyns are present in the plant and flower (of course, again, it could be an ancient contribution of some other purple/lavender flower). There are also the pure ocher color varieties along with the aurea variety that indicate the presence of the yellow anthoxanthins in the flowers... So, it is not easy to say that only the green are pure forbesii, but it is possible.
Cattleya forbesii var. rosea
Linear Mode
