Steve, First I'll deal with the points you listed in your OGD V7 #19 posting:
> in some of the collected and described specimens from the original >publication, there is an unstable genetic abberation of symmetrical >incisions upon the dorsal. So even in the original collection of the >plants to be described you had wide variation, even though it was >not THE selected single plant that had the variation The original publication of P. sangii described the type specimen plus known variations. OK, fair enough, that is good botany. Let's ignore your comment about "an unstable genetic abberation" because that is speculation ... have you done any tests to show unstable genes ? ... and if the species AS DESCRIBED has a variable dorsal sepal, how can you call this variation 'an abberation' when the description says it is normal ? Let's accept that the species is variable in certain respects. I have no difficulty with that. > Not only is the leaf mottle and size different Not significant. The species shows variation. We've already accepted that. >the flower morphology is very different. Yes, I can see that from Olaf Gruss' photos that you sent me. Unfortunately, the staminode (the key diagnostic character in Paphiopedilum) is out of focus and over-exposed on both photos, so I cannot make a judgement about whether the morphological differences are significant. And before I could comment, I'd want to be absolutely certain that I wasn't looking at a hybrid. >According to Braem, no isotype of the originally described holotype > has been found. Although he did not say this as a direct quote, (snip) > Plants matching the original description have not been re-introduced Hang on a moment.... if Guido didn't actually say that, why are you putting words in his mouth ? Guido is far to careful about terminology to make such a sloppy statement. An isototype is a duplicate specimen of the holotype, collected from the same individual. Even if plants matching the holotype are collected later, they can NEVER be an isotype. >when I say that the holotype is variant, I mean ........ Sorry Steve, you're putting the cart before the horse. The holotype IS P. sangii. By definition it does not show abberations or variations; it is the perfectly normal, bog-standard, ground-zero, bottom-line Paphiopedilum sangii. Other specimens can show variations or abberations, but not the holotype. Also, the original publication warned us about variability in the species, so we shouldn't get too excited when we see a plant that doesn't exactly match the holotype. Steve, when I posted my comment on OGD V7 #19, I wasn't looking for a discussion on P. sangii. What I was objecting to was the way you used "ayubianum", an illegitimate, pseudo-scientific latinised name. Latin (or latinised) names are reserved for correctly-published scientific names and should not be applied, willy-nilly, to horticultural variants. It is easy enough to check if a Latin name has been published; if it hasn't then you shouldn't be using it. If you really, really insist on adding an extra name to one of your plants in order to distinguish it from others, then give it a cultivar name. There are many websites that tell you about this, eg: http://www.ishs.org/sci/icraname.htm or: http://www.anbg.gov.au/acra/naming-a-cultivar.html If you'd called the plant Paphiopedilum sangii 'Ayub's Delight' then I wouldn't have objected (though I imagine some others would !!). Cheers, Peter O'Byrne Singapore _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
