Scott D. Trainor asked: >I was interested in seeing a picture and maybe a description of >Den.schulleri, but I couldn't find any in my usual sources. >Wildcatt shows that a VERY large plant 'Chet' received a CCM >in 1969, but flowers described simply as "typical". The Baker's >book gives cultural information, which is helpful. Since this >species is fairly common in Den. hybrids, I'm surprised there >isn't more information out there. Anyone have or information on >this species?
Scott, you're going to find this a bit of a shock (given your comment above) but the true Dendrobium schulleri is almost certainly not in cultivation. This is a near-mythical species, generally assumed to come from northern New Guinea (but no-one really knows) and described from a plant of horticultural origin which was subsequently made into a herbarium specimen. No-one has ever re-collected the species from the wild ... actually, that sentence ought to say "it appears that no-one has ever collected the species from the wild". The name has long been applied to almost any suitable hybrid Dendrobium in # Spatulata that has yellow or yellowish flowers and petals that are longer than the sepals and wider at the apex than the base. There must be over a thousand different hybrids that match this description and any photo, award, parentage record, etc, that bears the label "Dendrobium schulleri" could be any one of them. The trouble is that apart from the petals, the type of D. schulleri doesn't have any really good characters; it is much like a number of other Spatulata Dendrobiums, so distinguishing between a good hybrid copy of "D. schulleri" and the real thing is extremely difficult. To further complicate matters, some "D. schulleri" lookalike hybrids have escaped from captivity and established themselves in the wild. There is at least one such colony in New Britain (the big island off Papua New Guinea) and I've recently seen specimens of "D. schulleri" that were jungle-collected in Flores (Indonesia) ... the latter plants being particularly convincing mimics of D. schulleri, but the flowers were much larger than the Type. Cheers, Peter O'Byrne Singapore _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) orchids@orchidguide.com http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
