Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Cym. wenshanense

A new seedling of Cymbidium wenshanense, originally sourced from Andy's Orchids (http://www.andysorchids.com/), flowered this past weekend.














According to Du Puy and Cribb (The Genus Cymbidium, 2007), Cym. wenshanense was discovered in southern China, south-eastern Yunnan. The flower form is strongly reminiscent of the well-known Cym. erythrostylum; however, the plant habit is quite compact, as evidenced by the small pseudobulbs, such that when it is out of bloom, one might even mistake it for Jensoa section species. The flowers are delightfully fragrant, which is also different from Cym. erythrostylum, and I love the striated lip markings.














A quick search using the RHS website (http://apps.rhs.org.uk/horticulturaldatabase/orchidregister/) shows that, at this time, Cym. wenshanense as only been used a few times for hybridizing:
i) Ying Xiang Lan (x tracyanum) 1998;
ii) Leek (wilsonii x ) 1998; and
iii) Hengduan's Isabell (tortisepalum x ) 2010.

Given it's compact habit, this will be a nice species to use for breeding miniature cymbidiums. The relatively large flower size in relation to the small plant may challenge one's definition of 'miniature', depending upon whether one uses the flower size, as opposed to plant habit, as the determining factor.