I think you have a mislabel or a hybrid there, Geoff.
Every hastilabium I've seen has a pink or white, heart-shaped lip.
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This plant has been in my collection for several years, ending with a potful of bulbs, but never a sign of a flower. This Spring I knocked it out, found poor roots, cut off all the back-bulbs saving only the two front bulbs, and put it in a new pot with sphagnum moss as the compost.
No new growth yet, but this fine spike, well over a metre tall, branches, and lots of buds. Only a few flowers out so far, as seen here. Big flowers, maybe 11cm high and as much broad.
Please, please Mr.Oncidium, open a lot more and don't drop any, in the next two weeks... It should be good at the Autumn (Fall) show of Bournemouth OS on 28th....
I think you have a mislabel or a hybrid there, Geoff.
Every hastilabium I've seen has a pink or white, heart-shaped lip.
How lovely Geoff. Nice job and yes please last until your show!
An interesting point, Ray. However, I have in my library a copy of The Pictorial Encyclopaedia of Oncidium - Mark Chase ( I think he is one of the Kew people) with life-size illustrations of over 800 species. The pic of O.hastilabium on page 86 is a dead ringer for my flower, including the unusual and distinctive lateral extensions at the top of the lip next to the column, but with the exception of the colour of the lip. The book does indeed show pink for the broad lower part.
Next to the illustration of hastilabium, is O. clowesii - 4 colour versions of that species, are shown, one of which has the usual white or pink lower part of the lip replaced by a yellow one, with much of the dark colour elsewhere faded - as my hastilabium brown bars are faded as compared with the illustrated flower. Interestingly, too , in the clowesii pic, the end part of the pink and white versions is flat and planar, whereas the yellow one (var, flavum ) is a little pinched to give a pointed look, exactly as in my flower.
So I propose to tag my flower as Onc. hastilabium var. flavum. Maybe I will send a flower along to Kew...
In fact OSGB ( orchid soc. Great Britain ) sometimes have their fall show there - I have not looked up the details of that since I would prefer to avoid a day away from home just now for personal reasons, but if it adds up, one of my local friends who will show there might take it up for me.
If that works out I'll post a note.
Interesting ! Thanks for pointing this out.
I didn't know there were Oncidii with 11 cm tall flowers. It is really very beautiful.
Geoff - I may be the world's number one person for insisting that you can't ID plants well from their flower, so despite "every plant I've seen" I might be totally wrong!
Nice colors in that one!
I think the color combination is really unique and I like this one more than the typical hastilabium.
Back in the days of morphology, before dna was invented, i.e. before 2005, all id was dne on the flowers ( yes, a generalisation, I know ). And now, its all dna - but ask them which bit of the genome they analyse, and hey, its the sequence which controls the flower - only ! So what’s wrong with that ?
Lovely! I want one. Gonna have to start looking for one now.