Brassia - parentage and culture info

[kcole321]

Hope someone can help me.

I've been growing Brassia 'Shooting Star x Dark Star'. I'm interested in knowing more about the plants parentage. I've found some info on Shooting Star, but can't find anything about Dark Star.

It's doing well and has flowered several times, but I would like to get more detailed culture info that what I currently have.

kc

[Orchidzrule]

Hi KC,

I will take a stab at this. According to Orchid Wiz, there isn't a Brassia called Dark Star. Since Brassias are heavy on the chartreuse shades, I guess this makes sense. There is, however, a Miltassia Dark Star. It has about 1/4 Brassia ancestry.

Could this be the parent of what you're growing? Sometimes people don't do the most careful jobs of writing out tags--even some of the best growers in my orchid society are a bit careless and I've had to correct things after trying to look them up.

Interestingly enough, Shooting Star is also not quite all Brassia--only 75%; the rest is Oncidium. So technically it should be Brassidium.

At any rate, if you do, indeed have a cross between Brassidium Shooting Star & Miltassia Dark Star, your plant is an unregistered cross, and a fairly complex one at that. Do you have any photos of the blooms? This way we might be able to confirm or refute this hypothesis. I can provide a list of all the ancestral species and the theoretical proportions in your plant.

Cheers,
Rob

[kcole321]

Thanks, Orchidzrule. I'm an amateur grower; however,my research came up with exactly what yours did. I have a picture of the plant in bloom and a closeup of one of the flowers; but I haven't figured out how to post them. As soon as I do, I'll let you know.


kc

[kcole321]

Ok, I think I've got this figured out; that is, if this works. Hopefully, here are the images.

kc

[Orchidzrule]

Hi Kathy,

Firstly, let me say the plant looks great--you're obviously giving it growing conditions to its liking.

Secondly, it *really* looks like just straight Brassidium Shooting Star! I've looked at several images and they all resemble your plant closely. I really see no influence of Miltassia Dark Star, whatsoever. If you're not already aware, this is a rich purple color and although having some pointy petals, not at all long like Brassia flowers.

Having said that, however, hybrids are not always intermediate between parents, and may, indeed, show characteristics not found in either parent, so I wouldn't necessarily be too quick to dismiss it, but I would have expected it to look at least *somewhat* different from Bsdm Shooting Star.

I did find one other plant called Dark Star--Carpenterara Dark Star. This is a hybrid with mostly yellow Oncidiums and a few few mostly brownish Oncidium-alliance species in its ancestry. The colors are more similar to Bsdm Shooting Star, but there is no Brassia at all in this hybrid--besides Oncidium, it includes Odontoglossum & Baptistonia. Unfortunately, I could find very little about this hybrid. Although Orchid Wiz shows images of all the species in its ancestry, and several of the hybrids, including both of its parents, it does not show Dark Star itself, nor could I find any images on a Google search.

So, having said all of the above, here are the species that make up both crosses and their theoretical proportions. (I say theoretical because complex hybrids do vary a great deal from the statistical averages.)

Brassidium Shooting Star X Miltassia Dark Star
25% Brassia arcuigera
23.4% Miltonia spectabilis
18.8% Brassia gireoudiana
12.5% Oncidium wentworthianum
7.8% Miltonia clowesii
6.3% Miltonia candida
6.3% Brassia verrucosa

Brassidium Shooting Star X Carpenterara Dark Star
25% Brassia arcuigera
25% Baptistonia echinata
12.5% Odontoglossum bictoniense
12.5% Brassia gireoudiana
12.5% Oncidium wentworthianum
6.3% Oncidium tigrinum
3.2% Odontoglossum crispum
1% Odontoglossum spectatissimum
0.6% unknown
0.5% Odontoglossum nobile
0.5% Odontoglossum harryanum
0.4% Odontoglossum luteopurpureum
0.0% Odontoglossum halli (Orchid Wiz only gives 1 decimal place and I'm too lazy to attempt to figure out the exact percent!)

As I say, I really feel there's a good chance your plant is simply Brassidium Shooting Star, in spite of the claimed parentage on the tag! So, for the sake of completeness, here is its theoretical percentage:
50% Brassia arcuigera
25% Brassia gireoudiana
25% Oncidium wentworthianum

At any rate, Brassidium Shooting Star and your plant clearly derive a great deal of influence from Brassia arcuigera--the flowers are quite similar. The good news is Brassias are said to be among the more vigorous and easy to grow Oncidium alliance plants. Based on your photos, I'd certainly concur your plant is vigorous!

I hope this post isn't too overwhelming. There's a lot of detail to wade through.

Cheers,
Rob

[kcole321]

Thanks, Rob!! I spent some time researching the information you gave me. Didn't find anything on the two Brassidium crosses; which didn't surprise me since you didn't either.

I agree that it looks like just like Brassidium Shooting Star and for lack of any further information, I believe that's what I will call it. If it was really a cross with a Brassia Dark Star, it seems there would be some information about a Brassia Dark Star.

Perhaps you could shed some light on a question that has been lurking in my mind? When you look at these complex crosses, how can you tell what percentage of the successive parentage a cross really has? Orchid Wiz has apparently come up with some kind of algorithm that breaks it down. Also, are there any general rules as to what characteristics a cross might result in. For instance, are the characteristics of a seed parent stronger that those of the pollen parent; or vice versa? I know this is really getting down to the nitty gritty, but thought you might be able to shed a little light on the subject.

Thanks for the thumbs up on my plant. That really gives my confidence a boost!! I love this orchid and the gorgeous fragrance it has when it's blooming.

[Orchidzrule]

Perhaps you could shed some light on a question that has been lurking in my mind? When you look at these complex crosses, how can you tell what percentage of the successive parentage a cross really has? Orchid Wiz has apparently come up with some kind of algorithm that breaks it down. Also, are there any general rules as to what characteristics a cross might result in. For instance, are the characteristics of a seed parent stronger that those of the pollen parent; or vice versa? I know this is really getting down to the nitty gritty, but thought you might be able to shed a little light on the subject.

Thanks for the thumbs up on my plant. That really gives my confidence a boost!! I love this orchid and the gorgeous fragrance it has when it's blooming.

Hi Kathy, sorry to be a trifle late in getting back to you on this. Normally I get messages alerting me that there has been a post on a thread I'm subscribed to, but I missed this one. Perhaps you've already found some of the answers to the questions you've sought, but since nobody on the forum has replied, I'll try and answer some of the questions you raise.

To begin with, except for primary hybrids, it's impossible to determine exactly what percentage of species make-up a hybrid has. Those percentage values are an average. Essentially what Orchid Wiz or a similar program do is add all the percentages of the parents, then divide by two. If you produce many seedlings, you probably will approach these values on average, but individual seedlings can--and do--vary greatly from the mean. Some of this is a bit arcane sounding, so let me use some examples.

Let's say you cross two species of Phals--amabilis & equestris. The resulting offspring would be exactly 50% of each parent. Then let's say you crossed one of those back to its equestris parent (or to any other equestris plant). The theoretical percentage of the offspring in this backcross would be 75% equestris & 25% amabilis. This is arrived at by adding the percentages of the parents, 50% amabilis & 50% equestris + 100% equestris (which brings us to 150 equestris and 50 amabilis), then dividing all by two. The key word is theoretical. It's an average. In actual fact, the offspring could vary from as much 100% equestris (extremely unlikely, but theoretically possible) to as little as 50% equestris (also extremely unlikely). In actual fact, the possibility of any seedling being exactly at the theoretical average is also fairly unlikely, although many of them will cluster around that value. Are you familiar with the statistical "bell-curve"? If so, those two extremes I mentioned would be at the two "tails" of the curve.

Are you still with me? If so, I now want to address selective breeding. Let's say a characteristic of one of the parents is desirable, but there are other things you might want to incorporate and you start making crosses. There might be something from the original amabilis parent in one of those theoretical 25% amabilis offspring, and then you cross it to Phal amboinensis, resulting in an offspring with theoretically 12.5% amabilis. You then cross that offspring back to yet another amboinensis and the theoretical percentage is now only 6.25% amabilis. In actual fact, it might be a little higher because you selected a plant with a trait inherited from the amabilis ancestor. (This is an actual likelihood because one amabilis characteristic is large flowers.)

So the short answer to your question is you can't exactly quantify what percentage of a species is present in any individual hybrid, unless one parent is a species and the other parent (whether it's a hybrid or a species) contains no ancestry of that species.

Now, I'm no plant breeder so your question about pod versus pollen parent are a bit beyond what I know from any personal experience. Having said that, however, there are a few characteristics from pod parents that are passed along to offspring and I know plant breeders take that into account when making crosses. Indeed, I believe they'll often try to make reciprocal crosses just to be sure they're getting particular characteristics. So the pod parent often has slightly more influence when all other things are equal. I wish I could give you some examples, but I don't know any.

Cheers,

Rob

[navyderek]

Wow....I have trouble adding anything to the wonderful stuff Rob has put on this thread. His analysis is great. I want to add one or two minor things and agree with Rob's analysis, as Brassia and their hybrids are pretty much what I grow.

I, like Rob, think your tag is wrong- this does happen pretty frequently, so it's not surprising. To be the crosses your tag said it was, it would be an as yet unnamed Bakerara Unnamed (Brassidium Shooting Star x Miltassa Dark Star). Bakerara is the Genus name for any man made plants that include Miltonia, Brassia and Oncidium in its ancestry.

I'm nearly 100% sure you have a Brassidium Shooting Star. The clonal variety is a little more difficult to tell, but it doesn't affect the culture of the plant at all.The picture is a dead giveaway though. Having a Brsdm Shooting Star isn't a bad thing, I have a couple of them and they are wonderful plants. You are right that the fragrance is awesome, its one of the things I appreciate about the Brassia genus-- anything with a great deal of Brassia in its ancestry can fill your house with scent when the morning sun shines in the windows. While not quite as easy to care for as some of the Brassia hybrids, they are vigorous, and they do bloom frequently- as you seem to have experienced. There was a bit of a learning curve for this guy, they seem to need a bit more watering than most Brassidiums or straight Brassias. I fixed this by adding 40 percent sphagnum moss in with the bark mix.

[Orchidzrule]

I would disagree that Derek added only "minor" things. As someone who grows Brassias, his opinion that the plant is, indeed Brassidium Shooting Star, is more worthy of consideration than mine, which was based entirely on photographs. I also meant to mention that if the plant was, indeed, a Brassidium X Miltassia cross, what the proper name of the genus would have been. I didn't know it off the top of my head and intended to look it up, but forgot to. Glad you mentioned it was Bakerara, Derek.

Cheers,
Rob

[kcole321]

Sorry I couldn't respond earlier!!...and thanks for all the information. There's a lot here to study and understand; but, it's what I was looking for.

This Brassidium is one of my favorite orchids and blooms reliably for me!! I had more trouble getting my Oncidium Sang Chan to bloom. I think I had it overpotted. Since it has grown into it's pot, it's also been blooming well for me.

KC