paphiopedilum baccanum

[Hakone]

Paphiopedilum baccanum orchid blooming from friend ( hanhrokko )

[Raver]

Its a lovely slipper.

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Great looking warts on this slipper orchid. I love these with all the texture in the blooms.


cheers,
BD

[jimec]

Looks like a perfectly good Paphiopedilum acmodontum to me.

Jim Cootes

[Dorsetman]

It does not look much like the acmodontum which Cribb illustrates ; the pouch is longer and much more prominently veined ( in the manner of many P. venustum examples). The laterals are the wrong shape - rounded rather than pointed, and much more heavily warted than Cribbs plants - presumably illustrated from the Kew herbarium. Whilst I appreciate that botanists don't take a lot of account of colour, the total absence of red in the dorsal equates to the alba forms of some Paph species ( again, venustum) but this is hardly an alba form when there is so much colour in the petal tips. All these points are minor, but when it comes to identifying a paph species, it is all a matter of minor points.
Paphs just don't fit the theoretical pattern of clearly identifiable species, and there are so many forms half way between one and another. Some of the German botanists - I'm not blaming Guido in particular or at all - (I don't know who pushed P. baccanum into the world as a supposed distinct species) (!) seem to want give every variant a different species name - maybe that's what has happened here. If someone wants to label it P . baccanum - then why not. Or just call it P. sp.(presumed ?) - or maybe that would be wrong too - maybe we should presume it's a hybrid !

[jimec]

Hi Geoff,

I will agree that the plant above is not Paphiopedilum acmodontum. I did not look closely at the staminode before I made my judgement.

I looked on the International Plant Names Index for Paphiopedilum baccanum but it is not listed there. It is not listed in Phillip Cribb's monograph of the genus either. So unless the plant is a very recently named species, the name should not used, until it is validly published in a recognised orchid or scientific journal.

As to what the plant might be I don't know, but as you say a hybrid is the most likely origin of this orchid.

Jim Cootes

[Hakone]

Harold Koopowitz wrote in " Tropical slipper orchids " :

paphiopedilum usitae called paphiopedilum baccanum, first introduced into the United States in early 1980s. It has also been described under the name paph. parnatanum . The plant looks to me as a hybrid of paph. javanicum var. virens .
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