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[RosieC]

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Originally Posted by Jeffery

Cattleya orchid ) T-4605 Lc. Nice Holiday 'Suntopia, cattleya orchid ) ) T-4305 C. Chocolate Drop 'Kodama', Cattleya orchid T-4539 Sc. Crystelle Smith 'Gold Thro

this is 3 of the Cattleya's Orchids I do know, I dont know what that Lc, C, Sc stands for..

The following turned in to quite a long post, but just trying to help you understand the names

C stands for Cattleya.

The other two are what we call intergeneric hybrids. This means that they are a cross between two (or more) orchid genuses.

Lc stands for Laeliocattleya which is a cross between Cattleya and Laelia.

Sc stands for Sophrocattleya which is a cross between Cattleya and Sophronitis.

I'm not sure what the T-4605 type numbers are in front of the names. I can see your orchids with that reference online but it mostly seems to point back to one ebay seller so it may just be his reference for the plants. Someone else may know more on that.

Generally I would expect your orchids to be listed as...

Lc. Nice Holiday 'Suntopia' HCC/AOS
C. Chocolate Drop 'Kodama' AM/AOS
Sc. Crystelle Smith 'Gold Thro'

The first one or two letters are the abreviations for the genus name. The next part of the name is the hybrid name. These are hybrids rather than species and the name starts with a capital letter to indicate that. The part of the name in quotes indicates the 'clonal' name. This is the name given to a particular clone of the hybrid or species.

In this case the first two were awarded clones and so the last part of their name indicates the awards (HCC, AM, AOS).

Having said above that Sc. stands for Sophrocattleya (which it does), it seems that Crystelle Smith is registered with the Royal Horticultural Society as a pure Cattleya rather than as a Sophrocattleya, but that may be simply because they are always reclasifying things and moving them arround. I'm sure they do it just to confuse us.

Anyway, the pictures I've seen when looking these up for you look fantastic and Chocolate Drop is always a favourite amoung many of the people here.