Dendrobium Pixie Charm

[Carl Austin]

This is a first bloom of a seedling acquired from H&R late last spring. It is a hybrid of D Yellow Chinsai and D unicum. The plant is in a 3" pot and will not need a larger pot for at least 5 years. The flowers are close to 2" and have a wonderful fragrance.

Question for Catwalker: Have you tried to breed with this cross, Harry?

Carl

[catwalker808]

I believe Pixie Charm is our registered cross. It's successful in that unicum made the hybrid even shorter than Yellow Chinsai. The hybrid also blooms quite easily when temps reach about 60-62 F.

Since the 1990's, the Japanese made a number of short mini nobile type hybrids. These were hybridizing successes. I don't know if they were great commercial successes. They were really hobby type plants, perhaps to small for general public gift giving, which would require more spectacle for them ... as in the standard nobiles. Since the standards were not to be regrown & rebloomed, their inherent difficulties are not important in the flowering gift plant market.

For the hobby market, ease of growing and bloomability are very important ... as you well know.

[Carl Austin]

Catwalker, you're right. You registered this cross in 1991.

This meets your conditions of growability and ease of bloom. I'm just thinking what would happen if it was bred with a bright yellow recalcitrant bloomer like D senile. If I ever get some senile pollen, I will try to find out.

Carl

[gnathaniel]

That's lovely, Carl! What's the fragrance like? I talked to someone a while ago who was making crosses of these back to selected unicums, I think in an attempt to deepen the color while keeping some of the hybrid's vigor and ease of culture. Pretty intriguing... Might have been Marble Branch Farms?

--Nat

[Carl Austin]

The perfume is fruity rose if that makes any sense. I would love to acquire some seedlings of this kind of stuff crossed back to unicum. I'm going to look up Marble Branch Farms right away. It's a name I'm unfamiliar with.

Carl

[whygreenberg]

Nice work, Carl! I really love this hybrid. Mine is putting out buds right now. However, the main new growth on mine which is budding had a crazy year. It grew 3 or 4 times as long as usual! (It's a little twisty and pendant, but if straight, it'd be about 12 in. long!) I didn't realize they would grow that tall.

I always thought of the fragrance as being a bit like peaches myself.

[gnathaniel]

Originally Posted by Carl Austin

The perfume is fruity rose if that makes any sense. I would love to acquire some seedlings of this kind of stuff crossed back to unicum. I'm going to look up Marble Branch Farms right away. It's a name I'm unfamiliar with.

Carl

Makes sense to me, Carl! Fragrances are really hard to describe precisely unless you're a scent chemist (and then no one who's not a scent chemist will understand you anyway). I was wondering how much the unicum smell comes through in Pixie Charm, it sounds like maybe the 'fruitiness' could be an expression of that. Scent genetics are fascinating and, it seems, still very poorly understood. Yellow Chinsai is all moniliforme, unicum, and heterocarpum, right?

Marble Branch is a small breeding/growing operation in upstate SC. They're about two hours from Asheville, NC and I think a similar distance from Atlanta. Mark and Gary make and sell some very unusual Cattleya-type hybrids with an emphasis on compactness. I've gotten a number of hybrids and species from them and their quality and value is exceptional. Not sure whether they ship to Canada or not, but even with CITES and import permits and such I'm sure you'd still get a great deal from them. I think in addition to their new project of hybridizing Dendrobiums they've also been making some new Bulbophyllum crosses.

My local orchid society (based in Asheville) is taking a field trip to Marble Branch in mid-February. I'll definitely inquire about how the Pixie Charm crosses are coming along, though I got the impression before that this is a pretty new endeavor. I'm really stoked about the trip; I don't think these guys usually have on-site sales and I'm curious to see what they have that isn't listed on their website. Definitely check them out, not only is their breeding on the cutting edge but their knowledge is quite extensive and they've always been very friendly and helpful with my ignorant pestering.

--Nat