Help with Catasetum ID

[rcb]

Hi, I was wondering if any of the Ctsm experts could help me with this flower. I bough it as Ctsm roseo-album, which I think is a synonym for Ctsm discolor. I'm a little confused as to whether these are female or male flowers, and any help would be appreciated. When the spike started budding, and there were only 2, I assumed I was getting female flowers, but now that they have opened, they look the same as last year, when I had 12 flowers. I apologize for the quality of the pictures, but these are the best I have. The are hooded, like the females, but I think the coloring is male and they do have pollinia. Or are they hermaphroditic? The pictures of male flowers I found on the internet looked very different from these. Any help would be appreciated.

[catwalker808]

The photos don't show enough detail, but whatever catasetums they are, they are either female or hermaphroditic. The male flowers are usually much showier. These look truncated and not at all like male flowers. In addition, there are only 2 flowers, whereas, even a fairly small plant would have more male flowers

The plant was probably growing in a very shady area, or shaded by other plants ... conditions which favor production of female flowers.

[rcb]

catwalker thank you. They are definitely not female, as they have pollinia, so they must be hermaphrodites. I just thought it was odd that I got they exact same looking flowers 2 years in a row if they were herm.

They are growing with all my other Ctsm alliance plants, of which I got mostly female flowers early in the summer, and now are getting mostly male flowers.

[gixrj18]

They look kind of like a hermaphroditic tenebrosum, or one of it's hybrids.

[kavanaru]

they indeed look like roseo-album masculine flowers... roseo-album (and discolor, which is definetily a different species) have this kind of male flowers which somehow resemble female flowers in other species. The male flowers in these two species will normally have those hairs/spikes on teh side of the labellum (some clones do not have them, as well as some clones have them extra-large!), furthermore teh male flowers are more colorful than the female (as in other species, but normally not so green)

Here you can see female flowers of Ctsm. discolor:


a good way to differentiate roseo-album from discolor is the spike: hanging for roseo-album (apiphyte) and erect for discolor (terrestrial or lithophyte species!)

Ctsm. discolor growing in La Gran sabana, Venezuela. This species grows on sand in full sun. There is a lot of rain and ground water during the growing season. Plants are also exposed to regular fires (can be seen in some of the PBs in the pictures below). A new growing spike is visible in teh second picture (click on the pics and you will be directed to the flickr website, where you can open the pictures in full size!)

[kavanaru]

Final note, I am not very familiar or an expert with Ctsm. roseo-album... maybe Bruno de Toni can give more input here...

[rcb]

ok, the flowers do have hairs on each side of the lip, and the spike is not erect. It travels along the top of the potting media. I know my pixs aren't great for detail, but the color of the flowers are coming through pretty true - they are definitely a dark rose pink. If they are as you suspect male flowers, then I just have to figure out why I didn't get that many this year compared to last year. About mid summer, I did reduce the amount of sun all my Ctsms were getting, as I was getting so many female flowers. But the p'bulb from this year is much bigger than last year - when I got 12 flowers.

Just one reason why I like this alliance, there is always a surprise lol