In the Victorian era thousands upon thousands of Odontoglossum crispum plants were introduced from the wild. Many had a good shape , size and texture. You only have to look at the pages of Lindenia (late Victorian era) to see the quality of wild collected plants. OK for every 10,000 plants exported there may have only been a "good one", but they did take from the wild hundreds of thousands of plants. Valleys were left partially empty and any that were left were destroyed, so the next collector could not get them.
Here in the UK we have The North of England Orchid Society, who were formed in 1898. Like the RHS they gave awards to the plants shown at certain times to them (AM/NEOS, FCC/NEOS). Also like the RHS, the awarded plants were painted and a record has been kept and can be bought on CD-ROM at a modest price of ?12. There are quite a few paintings of Odontoglossum crispum, showing the albas , 'normal' type and darker clones. In the wild the species had a large gene pool and was not restricted to white flowers and the odd darker spots as Victorian books journals have shown. As my late father said "you cant make good from bad" and this can be used in the case of Odontoglossum crispum. You would have had to start with good quality clones for making better crispums or for use in a hybrid scheme. It is a pity we don't see any good 'real' crispums any more. There is probably none left in the wild which is down to us Brits. (and Belgium's)!!
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