Wild collected neo's?
 

Howdy all,

Does anyone have information on wild collected cultivars and their prefecture/area of origin? Thanks!

Steve H. SW WI USA, USDA zone 3

If you meant neofinitias they are from Japan and Korea and are special to the Japanese. Most homes have one. There is only 1 species, now known as Vanda falcata (I hate the way they're always changing genus names) but there are many cultivars. I went to a lecture on growing them at our local orchid show last weekend. The guy who gave the talk said they are "the easiest orchids to grow". The vendors at the show were out of them, but I ordered one from J&L Orchids which should arrive today or tomorrow.
I suspect if you found them in the wild it would be illegal to collect them.

Thanks. I don't plan to collect any. There are thousands of orchid cultivars still in cultivation that were collected in the wild in the past, probably hundreds of thousands. Many of these were collected decades, even more than a century, ago. I'm curious to get a sense of variation that Neofinetia has exhibited naturally over time. Steve H

Do you grow neos?
My plant arrive today. After it settles in I think I will repot it into sphagnum. How do you grow them?

I grow half a dozen neos. They're attached to an eight foot 'Petite Negri' fig tree planted in-ground in my greenhouse. It offers shade in summer, sun in winter and fruit to boot. The fig's deciduous nature makes it a fun host for a lot of small, semitropical orchids and bromeliads I've planted there, with room for lots more.

I'm not a big fan of the Japanese method of growing neos. The sphagnum is practical, I suppose, and it works well if you have lots of plants to display, but it's a bit precious for my taste.

Honestly, there are too many cultivars with wild collected origins to list them all. My estimate is that there are between 600 and 1000 named (but not necessarily registered) cultivars with wild origins.

That said, I do keep a spreadsheet of all the registered varieties, including a column for their origins. You can take a look here: Registered Fukiran Varieties - Google Sheets

Just about half of the 223 Japanese registered cultivars are recorded to have been discovered in the wild.

Thank you Hakumin!

I should have figured that out by myself 🤔 Any plants that were first cultivated prior to 1921, when Knudsen published his asymbiotic orchid seed germination method, must have been of wild origin. Many cultivars that originated after 1921 must have been wild, too.

Gosh, is there any other orchid, or plant of any sort, that shows such a capacity to mutate without human assistance?

One of the reasons I'm curious about plants of wild origin is that I want to identify plants that originated in the coldest localities of the natural range. Because of the wide variety of non-orchidaceous plants I grow I like to keep my night time winter greenhouse temps just shy of freezing. So I try to find the most cold hardy individuals in each species (not just orchids) I grow.

I cheat with some of my orchids; I love the labiate Cattleya species and some other orchids that need a bit more warmth. I use electric heating mats to keep their root zones a bit warmer in the dark depths of a zone 3 winter

Anyway, do you know any neos that originated in the coldest reaches of their natural range? Thanks for your input! Steve H

Just for information, there are in fact 3 accepted species of ex Neofinetia (now Vanda):
V. falcata: in China, Korea and Japan
V. richardsiana: China and possibly N Korea
V. xichangensis: China

Thanks for the information, s. kalima. I am just getting into neos and I can already tell it's going to be addictive.

lonerac, where do you live? Your greenhouse sounds wonderful.

While seed propagation has existed since then, Neos were not successfully seed propagated until about the 1980s, so pretty much any neo registered or discovered before the 70s-ish came about without active human intervention. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that they were discovered in the wild. There are quite a few varieties that were discovered as sport mutations as well. There are only about 5 Japanese registered neos that came about through seed propagation by humans.

Dendrobium moniliforme, Asian cymbidiums, even Bulbophyllum japonicum and inconspicuum has a dozen or so varieties....though, while yes, neos do seem particularly mutation prone, I suspect it has to do more with horticultural traditions that so many varieties come about. Japanese horticulture has celebrated bizarre and unusual mutations for the better part of a millennium, and many many plant species have lots of cultivars selected in Japan, Hostas being a big one that comes to mind, along with Rohdea japonica, Rhaphis excelsa...etc.

Neos....the furthest north that Neos can be found in Japan is not much further north than Tokyo, and even then only on the lowest altitudes. Korean native Neos are probably more cold hardy, but they're impossible to find. Pretty much all of the "Korean varieties" are actually bred by Korean breeders from Amami stock which are even less cold hardy.

I can't really say which ones are from the coldest parts of Japan since I don't really know the elevation information of where they were found, but most varieties originally discovered in the mainland of Japan will easily tolerate temperatures down to 40F, with occasional short dips down to 30F. The key though is to make sure that the drop in temperature in the fall is gradual enough for the plants to shift into dormancy mode. You can tell when the plant does because the leaves will gradually become thinner and a little bit wrinkled. Don't give water any time the temperature is below 45 or so, and only a very light watering once a week or so when above that temperature.

Perhaps try this for a year or so with a cheap standard neo (not an Amami), and see how it tolerates the temps.

---------- Post added at 07:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:09 PM ----------

North Korea is much too cold for any epiphytic orchid. If equated to the USDA zones, North Korea falls in range of zones 4 to 7, and has very harsh winters.

The original description paper for richardsiana does mention Korea but says "Northern Korea" which is rather vague, and the paper seems to imply that as anywhere north of the natural range of falcata on the Korean peninsula which is limited to the very southernmost coast line and islands.