Hi Peter
From your email below I take it then the photo by Cribb of D schulleri as reproduced in De Vogels CD 'Orchids of New Guinea Vol 2' should be treated with scepticism ?
regards
Steven Kami
Message: 1 Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2005 21:05:41 +0800 From: Peter O'Byrne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [OGD] more on Dendrobium schulleri To: orchids@orchidguide.com Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
In OGD V7 #27, I replied to Scott Trainor's query about D. schulleri.
I've now had time to search through more journals, and found the following comment in Phil Cribb's Revision of Dendrobium section Spatulata (Kew Bull. 41(3): 615-692 (1986):
"The only localised collection of D. schulleri I have seen (Ebert, without number) was from Noemfoor Island on the N.E. coast of the Vogelkop Peninsula. Van Bodegom (1973) reports it also from the islands of Waigeo and Salawati, and from near Sorong and Teminaboean on the Vogelkop Peninsula. I have seen many plants in living collections misidentified as D. schulleri, most being, in fact, D. mirbelianum."
By "localised collection", Phil means wild-collected as opposed to ex-horticulture. So the total number of authenticated collections from the wild is precisely one; Ebert's from Noemfoor Island. All the other collections are either of unknown origin (always suspicious) or are not D. schulleri.
The Vogelkop (Bird's Head) Peninsula is a 400 x 200 km peninsula at the extreme north-west of the island of New Guinea. The northern part is steeply mountainous and the southern half is swampland. Mostly uninhabited, it has been closed to outsiders for longer than I can remember; even scientific visits by recognised institutions are strictly controlled. I've spoken to a couple of scientists who have been lucky enough to get permission to visit, and they've described it as an orchid wonderland, particularly up in the mountainous areas where the only access is by helicopter. Most of the peninsula is gazetted as forest reserve, although parts have higher status such as National Park. Salawati Island is almost attached to the western tip of the Vogelkop; the whole island is a designated Nature Reserve. Waigeo Island lies just north of the Vogelkop; it has also been designated as an Island Reserve.
It is quite possible that a trickle of genuine D. schulleri has been reaching the outside world from these supposedly-protected locations, but anyone who has been collecting D. schulleri here would have had to keep very quiet about it. Consequently, any plants they sold would be without provenance, and the lack of provenance would totally devalue them because of the impossibility of distinguishing them from the hybrid "D. schulleri" that abound in horticulture. In short, these plants would have no special value because you'd never know if you had a hybrid or the true species.
So if you see a photo of "D. schulleri" in a book or on a website, treat it with healthy scepticism. Given the chance I'd ask the author "how do you know it's a real D. schulleri ?", but I wouldn't hold my breath while waiting for an answer.
Cheers,
Peter O'Byrne Singapore
_______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) orchids@orchidguide.com http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
