pleione barcena

[robsorchids]

hi i received a bulb of this beauty today, it's nearly in flower and would like to ask a few questions

because its a hybrid between two quite different species, do i grow it warmer like praecox or keep it in my pleione house with cooler types such as its other parent formosana?

im not sure what pod parent barcena comes from, i would guess if its original pod parent was formosana then i would keep it in the pleione house and treat as a cooler growing type.
but if the pod parent was preacox then i would need to keep it indoors like i do with the true species.

also is it best to water after the flower fades or give it a little misting now as i can see new roots emerging? or would it be best to wait until the roots are down the pot before i start?

rob

[Paul Cumbleton]

Hi Rob,
P. Barcena as originally bred by Ian Butterfield had P. formosana as the pod parent. I grow it cool in with the majority of other Pleione hybrids and it seems fine. I woud not water it yet, wait until the roots are much more developed. An alternative which works well (if you only have a small collection of pots!) is to stand the pot in a tray of water with the water coming only half a centimetre or so up the pot, and only leave it there briefly - say 10 seconds. The idea is to wet only the compost at the very bottom of the pot. This gives the new roots something to "aim" at and by the time they reach the moisture at the bottom of the pot they will be mature enough to deal with it.

Note the parentage of any hybrid can be checked on my website at www.pleione.info. Select "Hybrid list" from the menu on the left. The first named parent is always the pod parent, and the second named is the pollen parent (in accord with international rules), so you can always tell which is which. However, do note that this applies only to the original cross as registered. If someone remakes the cross and uses the parents the other way round, the resutling hybrids would still carry the name as registered by the original hybridiser. So to be absolutely sure, you need to know the origin of any particular stock - though for Pleiones this is usually not a problem due to the very few number of people hybridising them.

Paul

[Paul Cumbleton]

Hi Rob,
Yes, pollen would have been kept in order to make the formosana x praecox cross. I regularly keep pollen, it is quite easy. If it is for just a few weeks I keep it in the fridge. If i want to keep it longer - a year or two perhaps - then I keep it in the freezer. As long as it is dry when it goes in, it suffers no harm and keeps well. I have made successful crosses with pollen over 2 years old.

In order to be absolutely sure about the rules for orchid naming, I contacted Julian Shaw, the official registrar of orchid names for the RHS. He confirmed that once a grex name is registered, that same name must be used for all future re-makes of that cross including those done the reverse way round to the original cross. This applies to all orchids, not just Pleiones. However, in order to acknowledge the differences that can result from using differing clones or reverse crosses, it is allowed to use Group names to indicate these. I have written back to ask him for further clarification of exactly how Group names should be used and will let you know once I have a reply. What I think he means is something like this for example: I have Pleione Zeus Weinstein. The original cross for this was P. formosana x P. forrestii. I also have a re-make of this cross that was done using white froms of both parents (i.e. P. formosana alba x P. forrestii alba). This cross must still be called P. Zeus Weinstein but to acknowledge the differences from the original cross we could write this as: P. Zeus Weinstein (White Group). As I say, I will post another message once Julian has clarified this for me

Paul

[Paul Cumbleton]

Hi Rob,
When I remove pollinia I put them in a small plastic tube that has a stopper. Firts i leave them for a day or two with the top off and in my living room, in order to let them dry. Then I just close the stopper and put the tube in the fridge/freezer.

Not that I want to discourage you, but P. maculata is a bit removed (genetically speaking) from other pleiones and it is very hard to get it to successfully cross with anything else. I have tried over 150 times (yes, really, 150!!!) to make crosses with maculata and I have only had success on 3 occasions. The first of these which is maculata x grandiflora is in bud right now for the first time. I'm really excited!!
Ian Butterfield did get maculata to cross with formosana but none of the seedlings survived to flower, so no it has not been registered yet. Good luck!!!
Paul

[Maggi Young]

I have tried over 150 times (yes, really, 150!!!) to make crosses with maculata and I have only had success on 3 occasions. The first of these which is maculata x grandiflora is in bud right now for the first time. I'm really excited!!

My first reaction was, if at 150 tries you don't succeed.... eat chocolate... but then I discovered you have had success and the bud is on the way...... We'll just form a nice, disorderly queue here to wait for the photos, eh? 

[Paul Cumbleton]

Maggi, my approach is keep trying AND eat chocolate. I confess to being overly fond of chocolate, but my real addiction is ice cream which I have every day!

Paul

[Paul Cumbleton]

Hi Rob,
Praecox seems to cross more easily with other Pleiones than does maculata. There are 4 registered croses so far with praecox and I have also done some others, not yet registered. Only one success with maculata is registered so far, which is P. Riah Shan (P. bulbocodioides x maculata).
I have tried a couple of crosses with saxicola and these both worked. One of them, P. saxicola x P. forrestii, tried to flower for the first time this past autumn, but the bud aborted. This is not unusual for first flowering attempts - often the bud aborts, or opens but is a poor and unrepresentative flower of what could be done on a larger, stronger bulb. It is usually the second time of flowering that is better and shows the true form of the flowers.
Paul

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Very interesting discussion !
I guess that reading about 150 unsuccesful attempts to make a cross clearifies something about some Pleione being rather expensive... 

[Maggi Young]

Maggi, my approach is keep trying AND eat chocolate. I confess to being overly fond of chocolate, but my real addiction is ice cream which I have every day!
Paul

Aha! An ice-cream fuelled gardener... now we know the secret of your success! There's often a clue!

[Paul Cumbleton]

If I can get my mind off Carte Dor vanilla for a while.....back to the question of correct naming. Julian Shaw, the orchid registrar has confirmed what I said earlier about using group names, the only extra point he made was that by convention, group names should start with a capital letter. So in Rob's example it would be "Caudatum group", in my example it would be "White group". Brackets are allowed (as in the example I used) but are not essential.

Luc I know the expense of new hybrids can seem rather high but there is so much involved - not just all the attempts that may be made but the huge amount of time and effort to get from pollination to a flower (about 6 years seems my average). After the first flower you then have to build up enough stock to make them available. This may take another 5 years or more. As Pleiones are not very important commercially there are no facilities to do micropropagation hence no way to bulk up a particular plant very quickly. I only released my first hybrid (P. Spot Nosed Monkey) this year. I made the cross for it in 1998. Even so, I had many more requests for it than I had stock available. So £25 or £30 for a new hybrid is I think a reasonable price considering the time and effort spent on producing it.

And of course over time, as stocks multiply, the price usually comes down dramatically. An awful lot of the older hybrids now cost just £3 or £4 per bulb - I can't think of any other orchid genus where you could buy a plant for that price! So overall I think pleiones are fantastic value for money, especially if you are prepared to buy older hybrids and wait a few years before buying the newer ones.
Paul

[Paul Cumbleton]

The saxicola x forrestii cross takes more after the saxicola parent in habit - the bulbs are somewhat flattened, but not as much as in the true species, and it has tried to flower in winter, nearer to the saxicola time than the forrestii time. Growth starts early but usually after the start of the year rather than in autumn. All in all it is very much like many primary hybrids - showing characteristics roughly half way between the two parents. It's a pity the first bud aborted. Assuming it tries more successfully next year I will certainly post photos. I will aslo post a lot of pics of the new hybrids that flowered last year, as well as any new ones this season. I'll add these to my website too. I am selecting out the best forms of all my hybrids to which I shall ultimately give cultivar names, but I have not yet given any of these.

I will not be offering anything for sale this year, but I hope to be able to offer some of the new hybrids in 2009 - or if not then, certainly in 2010.

Micropropagation of Pleiones from meristem techniques is posible and has been done for research purposes, but no-one does it commercially, there simply is not enough demand.

Aside from the winter-flowering species such as Wharfedale and Tarwera, the first Spring pleione of 2008 has opened this week - a P. humilis which I grew from seed. Its parents are also in bud and about to open, so the new Pleione season is nearly here. Goodbye winter!!
Paul