Quote Originally Posted by Dorsetman View Post
Harold is a very experienced paph man, but questions about whether a plant is a true example of the species or a variation, or a sub-species etc., are matters of opinion.
Phil Crib does have the benefit of sitting and working in the Royal Botanic Garden Herbarium ( his official title is Keeper of the Herbarium – or maybe was since he retired at 60 but then carried on working as a Consultant, – how I wish I worked for the Government ! ) and RBG Kew has been there a very long time – several hundred years, receiving specimens, accumulating them in the records, as well as actually growing examples in their 60 or so greenhouses. Those records are in many cases the original collections by people like Low, Roebling, Forrest etc, as well as ones sent in by ex0plorers and collectors over the centuries ( I have even contributed plants myself, from my own tiny little collecting expeditions ). So for any one species, Cribb can go and look at many herbaria sheets, and compare them. As well as that when writing any of his books or publications ( numbering hundreds ) he asks to borrow herbaria sheets from other major institutions around the world – and the most significant ones for orchid history are probably all fairly local and easy European ones – Berlin, Paris, Leipzig etc. In most cases he has looked at dozens, even hundreds of different examples, before expressing his views .This makes his opinions very weighty indeed in my eyes.
I wonder if Cribb identified the P. lowii var. richardianum from herbarium specimens, or if he has actually found or seen one growing. I understand that Kew's official stance is that there is a lowii var. called richardianum - I don't question that. My confusion stems a bit more from the dissimilarity between the photos of the various representative blooms we have before us.