Michael Timmons wrote:
“Can anyone confirm whether or not Doritis pulcherrima has been reclassified as Phalaenopsis pulcherrima? I saw it listed as "Phalaenopsis (formerly Doritis) pulcherrima”
This is rather old news! The transfer was officially proposed in1933 by J.J. Smith in Feddes Repertorium 32 p. 366, and accepted by, e.g., Holttum (Flora of Malaya, 1957) Gagnepain (Indo-China, 1951), Bacher & Bakhuizen van den Brink (Flora of Java, 1968) and indeed Christenson in his monograph of Phalaenopsis (2001). Other authors prefer to keep Doritis as a distinct genus.
“I figured I'd wait to hear what the verdict is before I relabel my plant.”
Don’t do that unless you really agree with the arguments for regarding Doritis as part of Phalaenopsis s. l. (sensu lato, “in the broad sense”). One name is not more correct than the other, it all depends which classification you ascribe to and there is no official world standard classification. Phalaenopsis s. l. will probably be preferred by taxonomists who employ assumed phylogeny as the sole criterion for classification, a.k.a. cladists (I am one!). Lifting Doritis out of Phalaenopsis may leave the latter as paraphyletic (wait and see the cladograms!). Doritis as separate genus appeals to taxonomists who want to keep some similarity/dissimilarity in their distinction of taxa.
It seems that there is much confusion about changing generic names among orchid growers (and everybody who are not deeply engaged in taxonomy). I’m considering summing up some of the most important things to be aware of and post them this list, but I’m afraid it will be quite long (more than 500 words, beware!).
Finn N Rasmussen, Copenhagen
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