Memphis Orchid Show 2011

Dtps. Sogo Domeni AM/AOS 'June'

The Memphis Orchid Show was fantastic and I was grateful to clerk during the ribbon judging and loiter during AOS judging. The clerking responsibilities in the morning required activity: hanging ribbons, weaving in and out of mobs of judging teams, writing things on the backs of ribbons, getting other people to write things on the backs of ribbons, and locating the next flower to be evaluated.

The AOS judging process, by contrast, requires passivity from those outside the AOS judging program (those who are not judges, probationary judges, or student judges). It's similar to kibitzing a bridge game. I wear my best blank look and crush any impulse to comment on anything. In Memphis, I could tell that some clerks enjoy kibitzing the AOS judging, but some looked bored by it or had difficulty with silence. The AOS flower discussions are spellbinding and the judgments have immediate effects in the orchid world. It's an alchemical act where the judging team calls the flower and/or plant into glory and prominence. It's celebrating the flower (and using feats of science and botanical genealogy). 

The judging team makes an initial decision to score the flower or plant. Then, they research relevant databases for the cultivar and its lineage. There's more discussion. Each member of the team evaluates the flower or plant on a 0-100 scale. The team passes the plant or flower to another judging team if their scores show an insurmountably wide point differential. If the team shows consensus, they write a judging description of the plant or flower.

You can read the AOS Judging Handbook to understand the considerations that go into orchid judging. Cats and Catts readers know that I find the orchid judging world captivating on multiple levels. At the Memphis Show, the art of writing a flower description jumped out at me as an especially important dimension of the judging process. The team I watched went back and forth, around and around, on color and shape descriptors. Are we looking at dots or spots? Are we looking at a red that looks like wine or rubies? Where do the adverbs go in the sentence? When does one use semicolons? 

Linguistic precision is important because these brief descriptions become the account of the flower (independent of its photo). Given the international scope of the orchid world it's essential to have clear descriptions that abide by discursive norms. They form a permanent record in the orchid databases AQ+ and OrchidWiz, so it's important to do a good job. I watched it with rapt interest, but I'm a little bit of a word nerd.

The remainder of the show and Mid-America Orchid Congress meeting was tons of fun. Between Orchid Babies and Orchid Inn, I showed remarkable restraint in the vendors’ area by walking away from far too many Brachypetalum hybrids. I was trying to be good. I dodged the Orchid Inn’s many temptations, including Phrag. Peruflora's Cirila Alca. But my only failure, as I see it, was buying only one Paph. barbatum from the Orchid Inn table (I should have bought all of the Paph. barbatum Sam Tsui had for sale). Are these species normally so bright, so round, and so adorable? I love the white dorsal with the red and green linear elements. Maybe I need to buy a few more from Sam in order to satiate my barbatum needs. And my birthday isn't that far off. (Hey, I'm just thinking out loud here...)

I’ll post photos of my auction booty in the near future, but let me tell you about the trip home. Wow!

Paph. Wossner Goldball 'Jeanie's Dream' AM/AOS

The journey to and from the show reinforced my psychotic commitment to the orchid activity. The 19th century orchid hunters seem a little less brave after having gone what I went through to return home. I've driven all over the country, through ice and snow storms that would bench lesser drivers. Like a traffic ninja, I've navigated San Diego and Los Angeles freeways during the worst rush hours. I consider myself an experienced driver until last weekend.  


The drive home from Memphis was a frightening affair. I kept my radio on and, as I drove northward on I-55, the radio alerts told of multiple tornado warnings across the state. Broadcasters listed of counties and towns potentially getting hit. At first, it seemed like a string of meaningless names. Then, I start to read the aforementioned names on various signs and I knew I was in trouble.

Paph. Lucky Bells 'Gigantic' AM/AOS

I'm accustom to torrential downpours and loud thunder, but the wind gusts and the sheer volume of water dropping at every angle complicated matters. The heavy cloud storms had tornado potential, but there wasn't much to do but drive.  


Cars started to pull over to the side of the road. The ones that didn't pull over slowed to a crazy 40 mph on a normally frisky freeway. Hazard lights went on. More cars exited. The best situation, the radio boys explained, was to find an interior wall. That didn't help me at whatsoever. Exiting the freeway seemed to pose its own risks, so I locked my eyes on the hazard lights ahead of me and followed through, what seemed like, the Bonus Wash part of one of those drive-through car washes. The skies eventually cleared and my gut instinct to keep driving succeeded. All of this occurred during the same few hours that tornadoes ravaged Joplin. Selfishly, I was glad to be on the other side of the state during the worst tornado disaster in decades, but tornado systems covered all of Missouri that Sunday afternoon and my memory of the Joplin tragedy will be forever tied to my white-knuckled return from Memphis.


The crazy thing isn't the lengthy and difficult drive. The crazy thing is that I'd do it all again next weekend just to see the people and the flowers. And just because I only purchased three plants at the show (details coming soon) doesn't mean that the addiction is lessening. Stay tuned!

Paph. concolor

Brachypetalum -- Church of the Subgenus 
part 3 -- Paph. concolor

by Selena Sabine 

I’ll discuss Paph. concolor in just a moment, but I first need to tell you about the complaint I intend to file with the ASPCA.  Kitty labor standards have been severely breached with the Brachypetalum: Church of the Subgenus project.  All of this work on a holiday?  Can a kitty get a little help?  Riley has been exceedingly lazy, lounging in his cat bed all day.  Griffin has commandeered and camouflaged herself in a special new kitty blanket from L Spice.  Lan Lan has frittered away her time playing with the Cosmic Catnip Banana.  So, I’m researching these plants and compiling data while my siblings are sleeping, begging for treats, and chasing imaginary bugs.  I’m going to notify the proper officials.

Paphiopedilum concolor is the yellow Brachy species.  Judges’ common color descriptors include variations of yellow (e.g. “light butter yellow” and “creamy yellow”).  My orchid books suggest that it’s the easiest Brachy species to grow and, perhaps not coincidentally, it’s found in a wider geographical range compared to other Brachies (it's found throughout Thailand, Cambodia, Lao, and Vietnam, as well as parts of China and Burma).  Frowine describes it as “commonly offered and easy to grow.”  You can purchase a Paph. concolor of your very own at Sam Tsui’s Orchid Inn or EnLightened Orchids.  For the hardcore, Paphanatics offers them by the flask.

Paph. concolor is a parent to over fifty primary hybrids, including two that are enormously important for complex Brachy breeding: Paph. Wellesleyanum (Paph. concolor x Paph. godefroyae) and Paph. Conco-bellatulum. 

Paph. concolor tends to have smaller flowers than its sister Brachies, and that’s reflected in its judging record.  There are almost as many Paph. Conco-bellatulum awards as there are Paph. concolor awards.  From the 1966 to 2010, AOS judges awarded only 54 Paph. concolor flowers HCC, AM, or FCC awards (compared to Paph. bellatulum's 148 awards).  The best of the bunch was Robert W. Koffler’s “BK’s Gem” FCC/AOS awarded in 1992 (91 points).  It’s quite an accomplishment – the only FCC awarded to this species.  The judges said that the “nearly flat” flower had a “striking combination of large size, dark color, and superior balance of floral parts [that] led to an immediate consideration for an FCC.”  More recently, Marriott Orchids earned an AM (84 points) in 2000 with Paph. concolor ‘Massive’ AM/AOS, which is in the upper ten percentile of all concolor flower awards.  The most successful exhibitors were (you guessed it) Lynn and Bob Wellenstein with four awards.  Marriott Orchids and Limrick Inc. each claim three AOS awards for Paph. concolor.  Orchid Thoroughbreds and Rod McLellen won two AOS awards for their concolor flowers. 

You can see from the graph that 1991 and 1992 witnessed a surge in Paph. concolor awards.  Limrick and the Wellensteins earned a total of five awards during those years, but whether their successes account for the statistically significant upsurge was more than I wanted to think about this Christmas Eve.  There are rumors of summer sausage treats, I need to study that Koopowitz book, I’m missing my nap, Riley is acting like a complete weirdo, and then there’s that ASPCA thing.

Off to Oklahoma

I

I'm leaving today for the Oklahoma Orchid Society show.  The show is held in conjunction with the AOS Southwest Regional Orchid Grower's Association annual meeting, so it promises to be a big event.  I'm looking forward to the lecture series on Friday, and I'm especially looking forward to the talk on slipper orchids by Glen Decker.  The downside of my travels, of course, is that Riley and Lan Lan will have to wait anxiously for my return.  But I'll return with new knowledge and new plants for them to hassle.  

Brassavola Award History, 1969-2008 -- a report by Selena Sabine

The house faces several serious issues: chronic treat shortages, lack of Vanilla-flavored leftovers, and -- of course -- Riley.  Despite this, I have been asked to prepare a report on the award history of Brassavolas. Frankly, it doesn't seem like the best use of my time. But, because our B. Little Stars is one of my household favorites, I've decided to postpone my nap to work on the report.  Here's what I've come up with:

Brassavola Award History, 1969-2008 

by Selena Sabine, February 2010

Brassavolas have won 135 AOS awards from 1969 to 2008.  Of these, 60 (44%) are awards for cultural merit (CCM -- Certificate of Cultural Merit and CCE -- Certificate of Cultural Excellence).  These awards recognize a well-developed plant culture, including the vegetative parts.  Brassavola that won cultural awards had a substantially higher flower count (an average of 219.7 flowers per plant) compared to FCC, AM, and HCC awards (which had an average of 66.8 flowers per plant).  Cultural awards also garnered, on average, more points per award (85.3 for CCM/CCE and 80.5 for FCC/AM/HCC awards.

FCC, AM, and HCC awards center on flower quality.  If racking up multiple FCC awards is your number one orchid priority, Brassavolas will probably offer disappointment.  Only two plants have attained such glory.  In 1973, R.F. Fuchs' B. nodosa 'Susan Fuchs' FCC/AOS was awarded 91 points.  The plant only had four flowers, but they were "exceptionally large," "brilliant," and had "excellent substance."  In 2006, Steve and Rachel Adams of Abingdon Maryland won an FCC award for their B. glauca (FCC/AOS 'Rivers End').

But if you're going to grow award winning Brassavolas, you might consider B. nodosa, especially considering they account for almost 30% of Brassavola species awards.  B. glauca is a distant second (with 20% of all Brassavola species awards).  

The big years for Brassavolas include 1989, 1993, and 2006.  In 1989, seven Brassavola species plants were recognized in AOS judging (three of them were B. nodosa).  Eleven AOS awards were granted to Brassavolas in 1993 and 1994.  This slight increase could be due to two award-winning B. tuberculata and cultural awards given to two Aristocrat hybrids.  The biggest Brassavola year was 2006.  B. acaulis were two of the eight B. plants recognized by the AOS that year.

Recently, two complex Brassavola hybrids have caught the attention of judges: Fairy Queen in 2006 and Memoria Coach Blackmore in 2003.

Among the four primary Brassavola hybrids that have won awards, Little Stars and Aristocrat stand out with eight and six AOS prizes respectively.  The late 1970s might have been the era of Jimminey Cricket, but that hybrid (B. digbyana x B. nodosa) hasn't won anything since 1981.  Of the intrageneric Brassavola hybrids, it's really been the Little Stars show since 1995.  The first Little Stars award winner -- B. Little Stars 'Christine Parrish' CCM/AOS (88 points) was submitted by Motes Orchids in Boynton Beach Florida.  It had 474 flowers and 68 buds on 83 spikes.  The flower quality was "average" according to the judges' description, but the plant had "an almost perfect hemisphere of foliage and blooms."

To keep it straight, I've created some helpful tables:

 

Brassavola Species Plants That Have Won AOS awards, 1969-2008	Number of awards	Date Range
Brassavola acaulis	4	1984-2006
Brassavola ceboletta	l	1984
Brassavola cordata (syn. subulifolia)	8	1971-2008
Brassavola cucullata	10	1975-2001
Brassavola digbyana	19	1969-2002
Brassavola flagellaris	5	1981-2000
Brassavola glauca	23	1969-2006
Brassavola nodosa	33	1969-2008
Brassavola nodosa var. grandiflora	2	1993-1994
Brassavola perrinii	6	1969-1992
Brassavola rhopalorchachis	1	1975
Brassavola tuberculata	2	1993-1994
Brassavola venosa	l	1984

Brassavola-exclusive crosses that have won AOS awards	Number of awards	Date Range
Little Stars (nodosa x cordata)	8	1995-2007
Aristocrat (glauca x digbyana)	6	1990-2006
David Sander (cucullata x digbyana)	2	2000-2001
Jimminey Cricket (digbyana x nodosa)	3	1977-1981
Fairy Queen (Jimminey Cricket x Brassavola glauca)	1	2006
Memoria Coach Blackmore (digbyana x Aristocrat)	1	2003

Well, that's my report.  I'm now being peppered with questions like: What kind of heredity influence can we expect from different Brassavola species when we cross them with Cattleyas?  How long have people been growing Brassavola nodosa?  Why does it smell so good?  What are the pollinators of Brassavola?  (I think it's moths . . . mmmm . . . tasty moths . . .).  Who first discovered Brassavola species?  Who is it named after?  How do you grow them?  Can you mount them on bark?

You see where this is going . . . yes, another report.  I need to look for treats.  Maybe vanilla.  Maybe a nap?  Attack Riley?  Rip at the scratching post?

These are all tempting ideas, but first I'm going to say good morning to our Brassavola.  It hasn't won any awards, but it's definitely got our attention.