In OGD V6 #353, Alexis said: "According to the RHS website, Den. Orchidwood is still an accepted hybrid name. In my opinion, if the hybrid name is still accepted, then how can they (D. biggibum and D. phalaenopsis) be the same species."
Alexis, if you search through the OGD archives, you'll find this question has been discussed many times before. If my memory serves, we've even thrashed through the problem as applied to these two Dendrobiums. The RHS are custodians of a record of the parents used to make orchid crosses. Nothing more, nothing less. While the RHS try to stay up-to-date with current species nomenclature, they are selective about applying the latest concepts. Their decisions are often pragmatic rather than systematic, and they quite happily permit anomalies to remain in their database when it suits their purposes. Furthermore, the RHS record is based ONLY on the names of the parents (as submitted by the hybridizers, who are often wrong), not the phenotype or genotype of these plants. This means that the RHS list has ZERO botanic value. That's right, NO VALUE at all. The RHS have no influence regarding the acceptability of species names amongst botanists..... NONE WHATSOEVER. Serious botanists do not even refer to the RHS lists when evaluating the relationships between orchid species. The bottom line is that the RHS are consumers of species nomenclature, not producers. You cannot derive any conclusions about orchid-species nomenclature from the RHS website. The only relevant sources are botanic ones. Alexis also said: "I saw pictures in a book with each of the species and the Den. bigibbum had a white fuzzy lip on the flower and the Den. phalaenopsis did not and looked definitely different." Alexis, how do you know that the plants illustrated in the book were what the book said they were ? You cannot make accurate judgements from photos in a book. In "Dendobium and its relatives" by Lavarack, Harris and Stocker (2000), the photo of D. biggibum shows a plant with a purple lip and a white fuzzy callus, while the photo of var. superbum (ie, D. phalaenopsis) shows a plant with a purple lip and a purple fuzzy callus. The text says that D. biggibum "USUALLY has a white spot on the lip" and that you "OCCASIONALLY find white-flowered specimens of var. superbum". From personal experience I can attest the accuracy of both these statements, though I wouldn't dare to testify in court that the photos show the correct species. The presence or absence of white/purple fuzzy stuff on the lip tells you nothing .... you cannot safely use colour to distinguish between species. Personally, I consider D. phalaenopsis to be a synonym of D. biggibum, but then, I'm a reactionary traditionalist lumper at heart..... for instance, I also happen to think that Aerides lawrenceae and A. quinquevelnera are nothing more than common-or-garden Aerides odorata. I hereby challenge anyone who believes that D. phalaenopsis is a different species to D. biggibum to tell all OGD readers exactly what the difference is. Please don't waffle about colour ... both taxa exist in both colour forms. And please don't resort to vague statements such as "D. phalaenopsis has larger flowers" .... be precise ... tell us something we can measure, eg the range of dorsal sepal dimensions for all specimens of D. phalaenopsis, and how it differs from the range for all specimens of D. biggibum. Over to you, splitters. Peter O'Byrne Singapore ------------------------------------------------- Did ya know that, while 60% of Saudi citizens describe themselves as "religious", more than 80% of US citizens say the same about themselves. (Source: BBC) _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids
