AOS 2018 Cymbidiums (Species and Hybrids) Supplement
Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2018 2:40 pm
Those who know me well will be aware that because of the despicable manner in which certain AOS officeholders treated my former boss, Lee Cooke, I will never write for Orchids magazine again. On several recent occasions I have had to point out to people that my concept of never differs substantively from theirs!
I am not a member and read the magazine erratically online using a friend's ID. However Juan Felipe Posada loaned me his copy of the AOS Supplement yesterday so I got to read it in detail over the weekend. Supplements are published annually featuring some group or aspect of orchidology thought to be appealing to the membership. With a membership below 30% of what it was when I worked there in 2000, one might consider the current hierarchy have failed to appeal to a significant number of the orchid community!
But to be fair, the 2018 Supplement is a very comprehensive effort. Far superior to many if not all of its predecessors. Not always accurate and far too many typos and some outright errors when supposedly three proofreaders were involved. But if this effort doesn't get the reader even slightly interested in Cymbidiums, then they are likely died-in-the-wool "Pleurothallidiots"!!
On my rough count there are over 220 pictures of various Cyms, species and hybrids in this collation. Very impressive. I will run through the articles and make a few comments on each. Appropriately, the inside cover is all about Alexanderi 'Westonbirt'. The hybridizer, H.G. Alexander was both a great grower and a very clever hybridizer. Funnily one of the few people who denigrated him a little was my recently departed friend Keith Andrew. Keith said to me once at an orchid society meeting, if you had the first cymbidium hybrid in bloom, Eburneo-lowianum, what would be more obvious to cross with it than the newly popular Cym. insigne? I must correct the statement that most seedlings of Alexanderi came in pink shadings, that is absolutely incorrect. A few were pinkish but the majority were white with Alexanderi 'Album' even having a complementary white concolor lip.
Keshab Pradhan, a wonderful friend, gives a most whimsical and intriguing introduction to Indian Cymbidiums and one might add, plants from nearby regions. He writes in a chatty style with so much invaluable information offered in compact tidbits. As most of the key species in hybridizing have an Indian connection, attention to Keshab's cultural information will help many beginners master the growing of the majority of important Cym species. A man well in his 80's, Keshab has the vision and enthusiasm of someone half his age. He is truly a Himalayan treasure! I remember when he was judging with us at the Santa Barbara Show some years ago. A plant of Cym. grandiflorum was entered and all the N. California stooges were talking it up. I asked Keshab to comment. With a few diplomatic observations he pointed out it was a very inferior form and something that would not rate a second glance in India. Red faces all around.
Thank God Keith has departed this world! It would be embarrassing for him to receive a copy of the Supplement and see his bloody name butchered. He is Keith Andrew, officially Colin Keith Andrew and not the Keith A. Andrews listed as the authority on Cym. devonianum! Keith wrote the book, blazed the trail and led the way in Cym. devonianum hybridizing. He was always professional, always innovative and usually an inspired hybridizer of Cyms and many other genera too. In my humble opinion, by far the most clever orchid hybridizer of the past half century from the UK with Miss Eileen Low a close second. I'm afraid that the "bigger, rounder" crowd will destroy the line in short order though I certainly intend to make at least one Keith-inspired first generation devonianum hybrid every year for the rest of my life just to remind enthusiasts what a charming orchid should look like!
The poorest chapter in the Supplement in my opinion is the section on Cym. madidum. Kathy Barrett is a ball of enthusiasm but has no Cymbidium chops, I have no idea who Nancy McClellan is and Dr. Kevin Hill shows none of his scientific expertise in this effort. The article speaks of five important traits of Cym. madidum in hybridizing and completely overlooks the flower longevity aspect which is invaluable!It is now common knowledge that hybrids from a tetraploid madidum make more compact offspring than those from a diploid form, absolutely no mention of this at all.There is a very rare but horticulturally important alba form of Cym. madidum but I do not see it mentioned. Finally there is a load of nonsense talked about the Cyms Fifi and Nonna. Fifi was a diploid, converted to a tetraploid by us in New Zealand. It is a serious parent producing FCC winners such as Gladys Whitesell though the article shows only an unimportant triploid iteration of this famous grex. Then they talk about Cym Nonna.... a load of nonsense. Nonna is a polyploid, a triploid produced by crossing a diploid madidum with Alexanderi 'Westonbirt'. Two other major fails are the lousy comparison picture of Nonna (not a diploid of course!) and Fifi, both all spotted with Botrytis and the totally incorrect information that Cym. madidum must be kept warm in Winter. It may excel in Queensland but there are many forms that come from New South Wales that are no strangers to Winter frosts and they will thrive if kept dry in the two coolest months! A very disappointing and inaccurate contribution.
I was a bit surprised that Hatfield would kick off his article on new pathways in pendulous Cymbidiums by commenting on Cym. pumilum?? Maybe I have a lot to learn but it always comes upright for me! In that we either bred or bred the parents of literally every hybrid mention in the article, I found it superficial and vague.One might look for new directions from hybrids that are already a decade or more old and I failed to read of any. Maybe they are being kept secret or maybe they don't exist! I don't blame the writer but when the accompanying photo for Cym Jack Hudlow 'Frae' has been unnaturally trained upright, it is rather confusing for someone looking to learn about pendulous varieties!Let's just say that as the hybridizer of both the triploid and tetraploid versions of Mem. Amelia Earhart, I disagree totally with Hatfield's observations. The triploid forms have been totally eclipsed by the tetraploids and they are highly productive, with stronger and more manageable inflorescences than their triploid counterparts. We sold hundreds of the tetraploid forms into Australia and we are still waiting to see one decent hybrid registered from any of them. Amazingly inept or what? As for the comment that pendulous types have won the Champion Cym at Santa Barbara for most of the last two decades, I would respectfully suggest that speaks more to the decline of exhibition standard Cymbidium growing in California than anything else!
Coming close to tying with the Cym. madidum article for the dunce award is Jacobsen's contribution on Cymbidium Section Jensoa. This rooster lobbed into view about 25 years ago with a manufactured orchid resume that suggested he had already been growing Cyms for twenty of more years. Only problem was that nobody growing orchids in California had heard of him. Hmm!Well he is arrogant and ignorant, a fetching hybrid. Universally disliked by local society members and as a Ph.D in a subject totally unrelated to biology, he just loves to be called Dr. Jacobsen. He is apparently an official AOS photographer and if you look at some of the awful pictures accompanying this article you will be shocked. He talks about Peter Pan and is unable to distinguish between the original diploid, the tetraploid conversion and then the Lawson's selfing of the tetraploid conversion. Talk about superficial knowledge...... You'd think he might have been able to comment on Cym Golden Elf and mention that is was bred by Jim Burkey at SBOE.... No and in fact Jim Burkey, a leading Cym hybridizer for 30 years doesn't rate a mention anywhere in the Supplement. In this sloppy piece, Jacobsen shows something called Auntie Mary Kovich 'Silver Chalice' AM/AOS. Now, as the hybridizer of this grex I may not know much but if this pictured plant is correctly labelled, I'm a bloody Aborigine. I do not know the provenance of this plant but with its concolor lip and form, I can state unequivocally that some AOS judges should have very red faces! He talks about kanran hybrids yet seems totally unaware that Cym. kanran belongs to a different alba group to other Jensoa species. Wouldn't you have thought an "expert" might have known and mentioned this?
John Dunkelberger contributes his thoughts on Genetics and Breeding. John has made some petite and interesting hybrids. He shows that incorrect Auntie Mary Kovich again and talks of an albescent Cym. insigne parent. In that we also made an alba form of AMK with a true alba insigne, I suspect John may have been the source of this "ringer". You cannot trust the Chinese "species", so many of them are natural hybrids. He also shows pictures of a Doris 'Greengold' and my guess would be that he has a bogus Cym. insigne that is in fact a natural or unnatural hybrid! We've made Doris 2n and Doris 4n using the alba true Cym. insigne plus Oryzalin and none look anything like the Doris pictured. John makes the comment that he selfed a Cym. lowianum 'Concolor' and one came out with a red lip. I find that totally impossible! Red lips obviously can go to alba in an evolutionary mutation but the reverse? I think someone may have got a label mixed up somewhere. But John does his own thing and his hybrids are always interesting.
There is a lovely story about a giant Cym standard specimen plant that had to be taken to judging in a horse trailer. I've never met Jerry Kessler but you can be damn sure I respect him as a grower. Anyone producing a Cym Pauwelsii that gains a 96 point Certificate of Cultural Excellence has my devoted attention and respect. It's a great story of perseverance and pertinacity!
Funny that a person with little personal charisma would write an article entitled White Standard Cymbidiums and Charisma. I'm on a promise not to knock Greg Bryant so I will leave that comment to lie. His father has all the charisma in the world and in his 90's is still a most knowledgeable hybridizer. Greg just goes on inbreeding the same old, same old and I'm afraid to most people, they have just become boring. Nowhere in the article do I read any reference to Ernest Hetherington or Emma Menninger or even Dos Pueblos. If Emma had not brought Early Bird 'Pacific' to California and she and Ernest had not made Stanley Fouraker and Fred Stewart with it and had not Dos Pueblos bred Joan of Arc then this whole Bryant Orchids' breeding line would not exist. A little appreciation would not have hurt! Now I agree with Greg (for once) Joan's Charisma 'Vanity' is an outstanding parent, one of the great parents of the past quarter-century. Would we cross it to anything in the Fred Stewart/Stanley Fouraker line? Not in a million years. Why just this past week we have bloomed a remake of Cym Carlos Arango here in Rio Negro, strong, self-erect stem and almost 6" flowers on a first blooming. But it is a commercial orchid, not a show orchid. It's a sad state of affairs, not one Cymbidium flower is currently exported from Australia so all these big showy whites end up on the show bench where they win awards and totally bore the wider public. Toss in a couple of wild tracyanum hybrids or some Ezi-Gro pelorics and you'd drive the public wild. I wish Greg well but he is on a hiding to nothing especially as his only significant overseas market in The Netherlands has seen a dramatic decline in demand for large standard Cymbidiums in the past several years.
Carol Butcher got the topic: Red Cymbidums. Has she put in some effort on this one! By far the most exhaustively-researched and comprehensive analysis of the entire Supplement and done by a non-Cymbidium player to boot. When I read a piece and learn something new, I am immediately hooked. Carol does not make definitive judgments, rather she assembles information and invites us to "bake the cake"! We all know that Cribb is a pompous f**kwit and that Cym. i'ansonii is not a variety of lowianum but rather a natural hybrid from it. We really wouldn't care if it hadn't been so intimately involved in the Ceres line and then of course there is the wild card of the so-called Ceres 'FJ Hanbury' that was really a Ralph Sander. Incidentally Carol got the spelling of 'Comte d 'Hemptinne' correct whereas elsewhere in the Supplement it was wrong! It is unfortunate that the Cym. insigne picture chosen is a bogus one. The awarded Cym. insigne 'Mrs. Carl Holmes' was in fact an insigne hybrid. Like a lot of people I used it, actually with a Cym. insigne 'album' and that was where Cym. insigne 'Altlantis' arose. So what you see is 75% Cym insigne and 25% "God Only Knows"! A really interesting little tidbit for conspiracy theorists....... guess who Mrs. Carl Holmes' orchid grower was? Why, none other than Fred J. Hanbury. As the saying goes, things get curiouser and curiouser!!The RHS painting's evidence and the excellent bibliography make this the pre-eminent article of the collation. Congratulations Carol, your place in Cymbidium history is guaranteed.
Kevin Butler of Ezi-Gro Orchids in West Australia is a good guy. Scrupulously honest, infectiously enthusiastic, he is sometimes a lone warrior in Australia, arguing against the boring sameness of the "Lollipops on Sticks" type of standard Cyms that clog up their judging system. Kevin appreciates traditional show type flowers but he also loves and enjoys a bit of variety in his life. How much variety....... well don't ask him about his vacation to a nude beach in the remote NW area of Australia but a strategically placed hat kept it all kosher for public viewing!!Kevin is a pharmacist by trade so he is a busy man with the largest WA orchid nursery also in his care. I am going to say bluntly that you will not see a wider nor more interesting display of spotted standard and the occasional intermediate Cymbidiums anywhere else in the world!As expected, recognition from the Australian judging fraternity is lacking but plants like Ezi-Gro are producing literally walk out the door. Kevin has transitioned from being a buyer of Batchman and Geyserland stock to becoming a self-contained producer and it has given me immense pleasure to watch him develop and expand his hybridizing skills over the last quarter century. I wish him all the luck in the world and respect his hybridizing efforts enormously. It's just a damn pity so many of his silly countrymen have not woken up to the range of quality spotted Cyms on their doorstep although to be fair, getting plants into and out of West Australia is a bureaucratic nightmare. How in the hell they will hold a successful WOC in 2023 is beyond me. Now I will say much less about Kevin's double dip where he talks about Peloric Cymbidiums. He shows both petal and ventral pelorics and maybe a couple of the Terry Kamikawa hybrids are worth looking at twice. You either love or hate these types and once you eliminate the crowd that come out after midnight, there are maybe 25 people in the world that appreciate them. Half of them either are morbidly obese or have disgusting body odor so we're getting close to single figures here folks!! Anyway, again, if you like them. Ezi-Gro has CITES approval and an export licence so contact Kevin and get on board!
Last and far from least, we have Kobsukh Kaenratana writing about Grammatocymbidiums. There is such a surge in interest in what are essentially warm growing Cyms these day that I paused after reading the article and contemplated how a Supplement might look in 2043, a quarter century hence. "Old" Kobsukh should still be around and he may well be writing the largest article because with Grcyms, things are very much a work in progress. The cleverly designed timeline shows how they have started slowly and now are really taking off. Forget Ansidiums, they are never going to amount to anything but I see a very bright future for Grcyms. They need brighter colors of course, even some whites but patience my friends, all these things will come. Not in my lifetime but even the progress to date has been amazing and they are well past the tentative first generation level by now.Look at Pakkret Panorama and Pakkret Garuda and tell me that they could not already pass for a quality regular Cymbidium!
So Jean Allen-Ikeson and several of your Editorial Board, you've done a good thing. Forget about the CSA, they're history but this is the best thing the AOS has done for Cymbidiums in decades. It could stimulate a renewed interest in the genus, indeed, should stimulate such a development. if only there was some genuine Cymbidium group either statewide in CA or nationwide to concentrate and develop this resurgent interest???
I am not a member and read the magazine erratically online using a friend's ID. However Juan Felipe Posada loaned me his copy of the AOS Supplement yesterday so I got to read it in detail over the weekend. Supplements are published annually featuring some group or aspect of orchidology thought to be appealing to the membership. With a membership below 30% of what it was when I worked there in 2000, one might consider the current hierarchy have failed to appeal to a significant number of the orchid community!
But to be fair, the 2018 Supplement is a very comprehensive effort. Far superior to many if not all of its predecessors. Not always accurate and far too many typos and some outright errors when supposedly three proofreaders were involved. But if this effort doesn't get the reader even slightly interested in Cymbidiums, then they are likely died-in-the-wool "Pleurothallidiots"!!
On my rough count there are over 220 pictures of various Cyms, species and hybrids in this collation. Very impressive. I will run through the articles and make a few comments on each. Appropriately, the inside cover is all about Alexanderi 'Westonbirt'. The hybridizer, H.G. Alexander was both a great grower and a very clever hybridizer. Funnily one of the few people who denigrated him a little was my recently departed friend Keith Andrew. Keith said to me once at an orchid society meeting, if you had the first cymbidium hybrid in bloom, Eburneo-lowianum, what would be more obvious to cross with it than the newly popular Cym. insigne? I must correct the statement that most seedlings of Alexanderi came in pink shadings, that is absolutely incorrect. A few were pinkish but the majority were white with Alexanderi 'Album' even having a complementary white concolor lip.
Keshab Pradhan, a wonderful friend, gives a most whimsical and intriguing introduction to Indian Cymbidiums and one might add, plants from nearby regions. He writes in a chatty style with so much invaluable information offered in compact tidbits. As most of the key species in hybridizing have an Indian connection, attention to Keshab's cultural information will help many beginners master the growing of the majority of important Cym species. A man well in his 80's, Keshab has the vision and enthusiasm of someone half his age. He is truly a Himalayan treasure! I remember when he was judging with us at the Santa Barbara Show some years ago. A plant of Cym. grandiflorum was entered and all the N. California stooges were talking it up. I asked Keshab to comment. With a few diplomatic observations he pointed out it was a very inferior form and something that would not rate a second glance in India. Red faces all around.
Thank God Keith has departed this world! It would be embarrassing for him to receive a copy of the Supplement and see his bloody name butchered. He is Keith Andrew, officially Colin Keith Andrew and not the Keith A. Andrews listed as the authority on Cym. devonianum! Keith wrote the book, blazed the trail and led the way in Cym. devonianum hybridizing. He was always professional, always innovative and usually an inspired hybridizer of Cyms and many other genera too. In my humble opinion, by far the most clever orchid hybridizer of the past half century from the UK with Miss Eileen Low a close second. I'm afraid that the "bigger, rounder" crowd will destroy the line in short order though I certainly intend to make at least one Keith-inspired first generation devonianum hybrid every year for the rest of my life just to remind enthusiasts what a charming orchid should look like!
The poorest chapter in the Supplement in my opinion is the section on Cym. madidum. Kathy Barrett is a ball of enthusiasm but has no Cymbidium chops, I have no idea who Nancy McClellan is and Dr. Kevin Hill shows none of his scientific expertise in this effort. The article speaks of five important traits of Cym. madidum in hybridizing and completely overlooks the flower longevity aspect which is invaluable!It is now common knowledge that hybrids from a tetraploid madidum make more compact offspring than those from a diploid form, absolutely no mention of this at all.There is a very rare but horticulturally important alba form of Cym. madidum but I do not see it mentioned. Finally there is a load of nonsense talked about the Cyms Fifi and Nonna. Fifi was a diploid, converted to a tetraploid by us in New Zealand. It is a serious parent producing FCC winners such as Gladys Whitesell though the article shows only an unimportant triploid iteration of this famous grex. Then they talk about Cym Nonna.... a load of nonsense. Nonna is a polyploid, a triploid produced by crossing a diploid madidum with Alexanderi 'Westonbirt'. Two other major fails are the lousy comparison picture of Nonna (not a diploid of course!) and Fifi, both all spotted with Botrytis and the totally incorrect information that Cym. madidum must be kept warm in Winter. It may excel in Queensland but there are many forms that come from New South Wales that are no strangers to Winter frosts and they will thrive if kept dry in the two coolest months! A very disappointing and inaccurate contribution.
I was a bit surprised that Hatfield would kick off his article on new pathways in pendulous Cymbidiums by commenting on Cym. pumilum?? Maybe I have a lot to learn but it always comes upright for me! In that we either bred or bred the parents of literally every hybrid mention in the article, I found it superficial and vague.One might look for new directions from hybrids that are already a decade or more old and I failed to read of any. Maybe they are being kept secret or maybe they don't exist! I don't blame the writer but when the accompanying photo for Cym Jack Hudlow 'Frae' has been unnaturally trained upright, it is rather confusing for someone looking to learn about pendulous varieties!Let's just say that as the hybridizer of both the triploid and tetraploid versions of Mem. Amelia Earhart, I disagree totally with Hatfield's observations. The triploid forms have been totally eclipsed by the tetraploids and they are highly productive, with stronger and more manageable inflorescences than their triploid counterparts. We sold hundreds of the tetraploid forms into Australia and we are still waiting to see one decent hybrid registered from any of them. Amazingly inept or what? As for the comment that pendulous types have won the Champion Cym at Santa Barbara for most of the last two decades, I would respectfully suggest that speaks more to the decline of exhibition standard Cymbidium growing in California than anything else!
Coming close to tying with the Cym. madidum article for the dunce award is Jacobsen's contribution on Cymbidium Section Jensoa. This rooster lobbed into view about 25 years ago with a manufactured orchid resume that suggested he had already been growing Cyms for twenty of more years. Only problem was that nobody growing orchids in California had heard of him. Hmm!Well he is arrogant and ignorant, a fetching hybrid. Universally disliked by local society members and as a Ph.D in a subject totally unrelated to biology, he just loves to be called Dr. Jacobsen. He is apparently an official AOS photographer and if you look at some of the awful pictures accompanying this article you will be shocked. He talks about Peter Pan and is unable to distinguish between the original diploid, the tetraploid conversion and then the Lawson's selfing of the tetraploid conversion. Talk about superficial knowledge...... You'd think he might have been able to comment on Cym Golden Elf and mention that is was bred by Jim Burkey at SBOE.... No and in fact Jim Burkey, a leading Cym hybridizer for 30 years doesn't rate a mention anywhere in the Supplement. In this sloppy piece, Jacobsen shows something called Auntie Mary Kovich 'Silver Chalice' AM/AOS. Now, as the hybridizer of this grex I may not know much but if this pictured plant is correctly labelled, I'm a bloody Aborigine. I do not know the provenance of this plant but with its concolor lip and form, I can state unequivocally that some AOS judges should have very red faces! He talks about kanran hybrids yet seems totally unaware that Cym. kanran belongs to a different alba group to other Jensoa species. Wouldn't you have thought an "expert" might have known and mentioned this?
John Dunkelberger contributes his thoughts on Genetics and Breeding. John has made some petite and interesting hybrids. He shows that incorrect Auntie Mary Kovich again and talks of an albescent Cym. insigne parent. In that we also made an alba form of AMK with a true alba insigne, I suspect John may have been the source of this "ringer". You cannot trust the Chinese "species", so many of them are natural hybrids. He also shows pictures of a Doris 'Greengold' and my guess would be that he has a bogus Cym. insigne that is in fact a natural or unnatural hybrid! We've made Doris 2n and Doris 4n using the alba true Cym. insigne plus Oryzalin and none look anything like the Doris pictured. John makes the comment that he selfed a Cym. lowianum 'Concolor' and one came out with a red lip. I find that totally impossible! Red lips obviously can go to alba in an evolutionary mutation but the reverse? I think someone may have got a label mixed up somewhere. But John does his own thing and his hybrids are always interesting.
There is a lovely story about a giant Cym standard specimen plant that had to be taken to judging in a horse trailer. I've never met Jerry Kessler but you can be damn sure I respect him as a grower. Anyone producing a Cym Pauwelsii that gains a 96 point Certificate of Cultural Excellence has my devoted attention and respect. It's a great story of perseverance and pertinacity!
Funny that a person with little personal charisma would write an article entitled White Standard Cymbidiums and Charisma. I'm on a promise not to knock Greg Bryant so I will leave that comment to lie. His father has all the charisma in the world and in his 90's is still a most knowledgeable hybridizer. Greg just goes on inbreeding the same old, same old and I'm afraid to most people, they have just become boring. Nowhere in the article do I read any reference to Ernest Hetherington or Emma Menninger or even Dos Pueblos. If Emma had not brought Early Bird 'Pacific' to California and she and Ernest had not made Stanley Fouraker and Fred Stewart with it and had not Dos Pueblos bred Joan of Arc then this whole Bryant Orchids' breeding line would not exist. A little appreciation would not have hurt! Now I agree with Greg (for once) Joan's Charisma 'Vanity' is an outstanding parent, one of the great parents of the past quarter-century. Would we cross it to anything in the Fred Stewart/Stanley Fouraker line? Not in a million years. Why just this past week we have bloomed a remake of Cym Carlos Arango here in Rio Negro, strong, self-erect stem and almost 6" flowers on a first blooming. But it is a commercial orchid, not a show orchid. It's a sad state of affairs, not one Cymbidium flower is currently exported from Australia so all these big showy whites end up on the show bench where they win awards and totally bore the wider public. Toss in a couple of wild tracyanum hybrids or some Ezi-Gro pelorics and you'd drive the public wild. I wish Greg well but he is on a hiding to nothing especially as his only significant overseas market in The Netherlands has seen a dramatic decline in demand for large standard Cymbidiums in the past several years.
Carol Butcher got the topic: Red Cymbidums. Has she put in some effort on this one! By far the most exhaustively-researched and comprehensive analysis of the entire Supplement and done by a non-Cymbidium player to boot. When I read a piece and learn something new, I am immediately hooked. Carol does not make definitive judgments, rather she assembles information and invites us to "bake the cake"! We all know that Cribb is a pompous f**kwit and that Cym. i'ansonii is not a variety of lowianum but rather a natural hybrid from it. We really wouldn't care if it hadn't been so intimately involved in the Ceres line and then of course there is the wild card of the so-called Ceres 'FJ Hanbury' that was really a Ralph Sander. Incidentally Carol got the spelling of 'Comte d 'Hemptinne' correct whereas elsewhere in the Supplement it was wrong! It is unfortunate that the Cym. insigne picture chosen is a bogus one. The awarded Cym. insigne 'Mrs. Carl Holmes' was in fact an insigne hybrid. Like a lot of people I used it, actually with a Cym. insigne 'album' and that was where Cym. insigne 'Altlantis' arose. So what you see is 75% Cym insigne and 25% "God Only Knows"! A really interesting little tidbit for conspiracy theorists....... guess who Mrs. Carl Holmes' orchid grower was? Why, none other than Fred J. Hanbury. As the saying goes, things get curiouser and curiouser!!The RHS painting's evidence and the excellent bibliography make this the pre-eminent article of the collation. Congratulations Carol, your place in Cymbidium history is guaranteed.
Kevin Butler of Ezi-Gro Orchids in West Australia is a good guy. Scrupulously honest, infectiously enthusiastic, he is sometimes a lone warrior in Australia, arguing against the boring sameness of the "Lollipops on Sticks" type of standard Cyms that clog up their judging system. Kevin appreciates traditional show type flowers but he also loves and enjoys a bit of variety in his life. How much variety....... well don't ask him about his vacation to a nude beach in the remote NW area of Australia but a strategically placed hat kept it all kosher for public viewing!!Kevin is a pharmacist by trade so he is a busy man with the largest WA orchid nursery also in his care. I am going to say bluntly that you will not see a wider nor more interesting display of spotted standard and the occasional intermediate Cymbidiums anywhere else in the world!As expected, recognition from the Australian judging fraternity is lacking but plants like Ezi-Gro are producing literally walk out the door. Kevin has transitioned from being a buyer of Batchman and Geyserland stock to becoming a self-contained producer and it has given me immense pleasure to watch him develop and expand his hybridizing skills over the last quarter century. I wish him all the luck in the world and respect his hybridizing efforts enormously. It's just a damn pity so many of his silly countrymen have not woken up to the range of quality spotted Cyms on their doorstep although to be fair, getting plants into and out of West Australia is a bureaucratic nightmare. How in the hell they will hold a successful WOC in 2023 is beyond me. Now I will say much less about Kevin's double dip where he talks about Peloric Cymbidiums. He shows both petal and ventral pelorics and maybe a couple of the Terry Kamikawa hybrids are worth looking at twice. You either love or hate these types and once you eliminate the crowd that come out after midnight, there are maybe 25 people in the world that appreciate them. Half of them either are morbidly obese or have disgusting body odor so we're getting close to single figures here folks!! Anyway, again, if you like them. Ezi-Gro has CITES approval and an export licence so contact Kevin and get on board!
Last and far from least, we have Kobsukh Kaenratana writing about Grammatocymbidiums. There is such a surge in interest in what are essentially warm growing Cyms these day that I paused after reading the article and contemplated how a Supplement might look in 2043, a quarter century hence. "Old" Kobsukh should still be around and he may well be writing the largest article because with Grcyms, things are very much a work in progress. The cleverly designed timeline shows how they have started slowly and now are really taking off. Forget Ansidiums, they are never going to amount to anything but I see a very bright future for Grcyms. They need brighter colors of course, even some whites but patience my friends, all these things will come. Not in my lifetime but even the progress to date has been amazing and they are well past the tentative first generation level by now.Look at Pakkret Panorama and Pakkret Garuda and tell me that they could not already pass for a quality regular Cymbidium!
So Jean Allen-Ikeson and several of your Editorial Board, you've done a good thing. Forget about the CSA, they're history but this is the best thing the AOS has done for Cymbidiums in decades. It could stimulate a renewed interest in the genus, indeed, should stimulate such a development. if only there was some genuine Cymbidium group either statewide in CA or nationwide to concentrate and develop this resurgent interest???