New Pleione species???

[JPB]

Are Pleione microphylla and Pleione kaatiae new species ? Is there something known about these yet? Are they in culture?

Hans

[LarsB]

They are described as species relativly recently, 2003 and 1998. I don't have Pleione literature that new, but the majority of recently described Pleione species has later proved to variations of already described species.

Kind regards

Lars

[JPB]

Hi Lars, that's what I suppose. they may end up as another variation on the "bulbocodioides complex". Still very interesting clones that should be available in culture some day, I hope.

Hans

[johanneshoeller]

There are some new (unknown) Pleiones from China. Some have very abnormal forms of bulbs. I think many of them are not cultivable for a long time. They hate warmer weather. Some Chinese friends have no success with the new Pleiones,too.

[JPB]

Hans, do you have any additional information? (photographs, ecology etc.) on these new species/clones?

Thanks Hans

[johanneshoeller]

Sorry I have no details, because I have lost most plants or they do not flower. Most flowers are not very spectacular, but the bulbs look like from a Bletilla, some grow in the soil. I have some pics, but to find them is very difficult. Most of these Pleiones are not more available. There should be even hybrids between Bletilla and Pleione, but I lost such a plant after 3 years.

[JPB]

Thanks Hans, so that's apparently the state of the art of recently discovered Pleiones. I guess (and hope!) that in the coming years new species will be discovered. We'll see...

Hans

[Paul Cumbleton]

Hi Hans,
I thought you & others may like some more details about the species you are asking about. Pleione microphylla was a name published in the year 2000 by Chinese botanists S.C. Chen and Z.H. Tsi. They had been visiting the herbarium at Harvard University in the USA and spotted a sheet with a Pleione on it. This plant had been collected in 1936 by F.P. Metcalf, at Luo Fu Shan which is in Guangdong Province in China. Chen & Tsi thought it was something new and described it, giving it the name P. microphylla. It was said to have a white flower with some yellow markings on the lip. As it is known only from this one collection on a herbarium sheet (and has never been seen again since in the wild), it is very unlikely to be in cultivation anytime soon! In fact, it is possibly not a new species anyway. Phillip Cribb (the now-retired orchid expert from Kew) says that the published description makes it sound rather like P. formosana and it could easily simply be a white-flowered formosana, albeit from the mainland rather than from Taiwan. But he says he will reserve final judgement until he sees both the actual herbarium specimen and living material should it ever appear again. Chen & Tsi themselves say that it clearly belongs in the bulbocodioides Section of Pleiones, which includes P. formosana.

The name Pleione kaatiae was published in 2003 by the botanist Peter Peeters. He was describing plants that had recently come into cultivation from China (said to be from Sichuan Province). Although he said these plants had clear similarities to P. scopulorum, he thought they were sufficiently different to warrant describing them as new species. I showed Phillip Cribb some living plants of these a few years ago. He said he thought that they were just variants of P. scopulorum and that the variations were not sufficient to warrant calling them a new species. So we have a difference of opinion among botanists (nothing novel there then!). The flower shape varies a bit from normal scopulorum, but the main thing that strikes you is the “kaatiae” types are smaller in all their parts – bulbs, leaves and flowers – than the usual scopulorums. You can see several examples on my website (www.pleione.info) – go to the photo gallery, select P. scopulorum and then click on the word “more” under the picture. On the page that then appears, the first 5 pictures are ‘normal’ scopulorums, the next 5 are the ‘kaatiae’ types. You see I have chickened out of the taxonomy debate by saying that more work needs to be done to clarify just what these plants are.

The kaatiae types are found for sale occasionally by orchid nurseries – but they are often labelled scopulorum, so you need to see them in flower before buying to know what you are getting. All the ones I have seen are ultimately traceable back to imports from Chen Yi’s nursery in China and are the plants she had been selling under her list number N126. Like the normal scopulorums, perhaps even more so, I find them tricky to cultivate well.

[johanneshoeller]

Here are 2 pics of a for me unknown Pleione. The bulbs are very tall (4cm). I hope the Pleione will flower this year.

[LarsB]

Interesting. They doesn't look much like Pleione now, but let's see when they flower.

[Paul Cumbleton]

Hans,
These look like either P. bulbocodioides or P. yunnanensis. Both have these shape bulbs with the buds looking as though they are stuck on the side of the bulb rather than sitting in a recess

Flowers will tell!

Cheers

Paul

[JPB]

Paul and others, many thanks for your info! I recall the paper of Gravendeel et al. (2004) where she states that Pleione is a relative newly evolved genus with not too much genetic diversification. Hopefully, future research with more sensitive molecular techniques will reveal if P. microphylla indeed belongs to the bulbocodioides complex and P. kaatiae to P. scopulorum. Still, let's hope that some new species will be discovered in the future. Keep us informed!

cheers,
Hans