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I had the pleasure of meeting Manolo Arias of Peru Flora at the 19th WOC in Miami. We got to talking about Phrag. kovachii, of course. He related to me that he had brought a plant in bloom for the show. The hoops and red tape he had to go through in order to get the plant out of Peru was simply stupefying. Inspections, forms, bureaucracy, a trip to Lima, and more inspections, forms, and bureaucracy. In fact, a leaf cutting was taken, probably to ensure that it matches up to the plant on the way back to Peru. Through the whole ordeal, the plant held up — in bloom — like a trooper.

Finally, Mr. Arias got it to the show in Miami. On the first day, during the show setup time, he placed it in an area in his booth where it would receive cooler air, and not be under the glare of lights. The flower held up proudly.

The next day, the day of AOS judging, he put the plant out in the display area for show judging. It must’ve drawn many ooh’s and aah’s; unfortunately, I wasn’t there to see it.

Then, disaster. Six hours before judging, under the stress of the glare and lights and plant papparazzi and botanical lust, the plant dropped its flower. What a heartbreak, especially after making the long journey from Peru…

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One of the wonders of the horticultural world is the flower auction at Aalsmeer in Holland. Over 4 billion plants are sold each year in a massive, mechanized, concrete complex covering the area of 250 football fields! Auction lots of flowers from Africa and Israel (and many other places) are brought to Aalsmeer where buyers can bid on them as they come up for sale. Besides the astonishing logistical efficiency that moves auctioned flowers from Holland to North America in less than 24 hours is the famous bidding clock. A large clock counts down from 100 — as the time drops, so does the price. The first buyer to bid sets the price and can take the whole batch. Once a flower lot has been sold, it is set on a plane or train and shipped to its destination market.

Here are a couple of videos depicting this fascinating process.

In this first video, you can see the clock in action. It’s fast!

In this second video, you can see the many machines and trucks :

Utterly amazing.

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I was very fortunate to have three sanderianums come into bloom in late December/early January 2008. That meant I could, for the first time, exhibit my own plants at the annual Paphiopedilum Guild meeting. And this year, for the first time, the Paph Guild gave an award to Best Species (and primary hybrid) and Best Complex Hybrid. It was very exciting watching serious slipper orchid people look at my own plants, as I’ve never put up a display before.

The three plants were ‘Whirlpool’, ‘Double Helix’, and ‘Whirligig’. ‘Whirligig’ got the most votes, by far. The tally wasn’t even close. I was quite surprised, as I thought ‘Double Helix’ was the best, but the color on ‘Whirligig’ was said to be much darker and upon closer inspection, it was true. I suppose I thought ‘Double Helix’ had more twistiness to the petals. In any case, the petal length on these is in the 60 - 65 cm range.

The first picture is the whole display (sorry, I’m not a great photographer). ‘Double Helix’ is in the center with the square pot and ‘Whirligig’ is on the far right. ‘Whirlpool is on the far left behind ‘Double Helix’. You can click on the picture to see a larger version.

This one (below) is ‘Whirligig’ by itself.

Here are some more links to pictures:

sanderianum Double Helix

sanderianum Whirlpool

If anyone is interested in getting a blooming size sanderianum like this (mature with unbloomed growth), please let me know at orchids@paphinessorchids.com.

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Ploidy is a term that you may have heard bandied about in orchid circles. It comes in several flavors — haploid, diploid, triploid, tetraploid (and more). It’s actually a very simple concept, once you understand two things:

1. chromosomes
2. normal complement (i.e., number of) chromosomes in an organisms

Chromosomes
Some people may have only vague (and bad) memories of high school biology and discussions of chromosomes, DNA, cells, etc. Simply put: a chromosome is a physical grouping of genetic material, i.e., DNA. DNA is composed of four basic units (Adenine, Thymine, Guanine, and Cytosine) that are strung together like beads on a string. The pattern of A’s, C’s, G’s, and T’s contains the actual information of heredity. Genes are organizational units of these A/C/G/Ts that typically tell the cell how to build a certain other type of thing in the cell called a protein. Chromosomes are long strings of connected A/C/G/Ts. If you know where to look in the seemingly random string of A/C/G/Ts, you’ll find patterns of these letters are the genes themselves.

Normal complement of chromosomes
Every organism has what is a standard number of chromosomes. In diploid organisms (e.g., humans, dogs, cats, most orchids), half of these chromosomes come from one parent, and a near-mirror-image half comes from the other parents. In other words, we all have two copies of each chromosome, one from each parent. These copies are not identical, however, but contain slight variations that make up the difference between individuals, and enable everyone (save identical twins) to have their own unique genetic composition.

Ploidy Explained
What if you only have a copy from one parent, not two? Well, then you’re haploid (and not human, since humans cannot be haploid). Many microorganisms exist in either haploid or diploid states. A shorthand for referring to the haploid complement of chromosomes is to write it as “n”. A diploid state is referred to as “2n”.

Now, what if by some quirk of genetics, you end up with one set of chromosomes from one parent,but TWO identical, duplicate sets from the other parent? Then you’re triploid (”3n”).

Now, what if you start off as a diploid, but through some screw-up of the genetic machinery, each set of chromosomes is doubled? Then you’re a tetraploid. (Yep, “4n”).

Plants are surprisingly tolerant of ploidy. Wheat, for example, can become hexaploid (6n)!

Why this matters for orchids
Breeders of orchids often seek to induce tetraploidy at the orchid seed stage, or even earlier for certain genera that can be tissue cultured (i.e., grown up from cells in a laboratory — not the same as flasking!). The idea is the age-old “more is better.” In other words, if you increase the number of genes that determine, say, size or color intensity, the better the flower will turn out.

Does it work?

That’s a subject for another post!

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