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MINUTES OF THE GENERAL MEETING HELD 24/4/2008, 8.00pm
Opened By: Trevor Pratt Time 8:30pm
Next Gen. Meeting: Date 26th June 2008 Time 7:45pm
Members Present 31 as per the register.
New Member: Arni
Visitors: None
Apologies: Geoff and Chris
Minutes of the previous meeting:
Acceptance moved: Ian Seconded: Ann
Business arising from the minutes: None.

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Raffle: Chris, Sandra and Eva
Name Badge: Frank

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Went to Gillian for a large, colourful Miltonia spectabilus var Morreliana which is still all in the pot!

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1. Bring chairs and a plate to John's place on Sunday.
2. Adrian gave a brief report about progress on our WAOS exhibit.
3. Lee foreshadowed the need for volunteers to help run the WAOS.
4. Ken has already sent Bob of Sakdisri a list of the 400 or so orders he has received to date so that the plants can be prepared for the Watkinsons to bring them back in July. The order is already in excess of the USD2 000 needed to get the 10% discount. This will be used to offset costs. Ken feels that the expenses could be as low as AUD5/plant.
5. Peter generously donated several large Phalaenopsis equestris kiekies to the club for members to buy at $2/keiki.
Plant descriptions then followed.

The Lecture Program
Arthur Chadwick tells me that his health is on the improve and he is still hoping to be with us in September. Many of us are looking forward to his Lecture on Cattleyas and have our fingers crossed!!
GOOD NEWS!! Lourens Grobler of South Africa will replace Mike Tibbs, who is unable to make it to the Spectacular. Lourens is an orchid judge and a knowledgeable specialist in South African Orchids. We are pleased to have him on the Lecture Program which is now On Line at http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eemntee/WAOS_Lecture_Program.htm
You will also find a map to the well appointed Lecture Room which has been kindly offered to WAOS by the City of Belmont.

A new Wildflower & Orchid Four Day Spectacular Tour has been organised, run by 'Country Escapes in Western Australia Tours'
Wildflowers of Western Australia
The Southwest Australia Eco Region is of Global and National Significance and is globally recognised as one of the planet's major biodiversity hotspots. The south western part of Western Australia is known as a biosphere for wildflowers, with over 12,000 species in a huge diversity of regional colours and displays. Western Australia seems an unlikely place for wildflowers as much of the state is harsh and dry with very low nutrient soils. Yet that is one of the very reason the flowers here are among the most colourful and abundant in the world. The Wildflower season begins in June, and lasts until December with the best viewing time being in August, September and October. Viewing wildflowers is as easy as walking into the bush from the road to find and see an abundance of big, small, colourful, dainty flowers, including many orchids. Some of the most famous of the wildflower are the Banksias, Pin Cushion Hakea, Wreath Lechenaultia, Blue Lechenaultia, everlasting daisies, Queen of Sheba orchid, spider orchid and a host of other orchid species. Our Wildflower & Orchid Four Day Spectacular Tour 1st to 4th Oct. 2008 will be touring in the southern part of Western Australia where we will see this diversity of wildflowers and orchids species.
AND THERE ARE STILL VACANCIES WITH THIS TOUR so email SYLVIA
More information can be found here;- http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eemntee/Second_Orchid_Tour.htm
Or - Mobile 0429 385 642 - Phone: + 61 08 9385 6422 - Fax: + 61 08 9385 6433

First Aid.
The Royal Life Saving Society Australia has contracted to give us their services on site during the course of the Spectacular. This is not an invitation to fall over and hurt yourself, but you will be in good hands if you do!!

Vendors
The first of our Vendors Catalogues for pre ordering is now on the WAOS Web Site at ……. http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eemntee/WAOS_Catalogue_Page.htm where it can be downloaded as a Word File or a PDF.
Should you have problems downloading either of these, please contact TONY
Orchid FLASKS and PLANTS can be ordered by contacting NEVILLE
Joseph Wu Orchids of Taiwan is intending to send LIVE ORCHID PLANTS!! So be quick and look at the CATALOGUE PAGE for their catalogue. If you like Phalaenopsis, this is too good an opportunity to miss!!!

Kings Park Wildflower Festival
WAOS will work in conjunction with Kings Park to advertise both events in unison. Kings Park are working on their website at the moment and we expect to have a link to them shortly. The Kings Park Wildflower Festival will run for the whole of September and is a "must see" for all visitors to Perth.

For any queries or questions, please write to, the Secretary, PO Box 4076, Alexander Heights, WA 6064, or email teenanm@iinet.net.au
To be included on our emailing list for further Bulletins, please contact TONY

Tony
Publicity
WAOS 2008

Gary Yong Gee says.... Ken and Chris' Stenocoryne vitellina is Stenocoryne aureo-fulva (syn. Bifrenaria aureo-fulva). Stenocoryne vitellina refers to another species with differently shaped flowers. We have had plenty of seedlings also labelled incorrectly here in south-east Queensland.

The Financial Report was tabled by Lee during the AGM and the current balance is $1 514.91.

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Your annual subscriptions were due at the last meeting - please pay the Treasurer.

Don't forget the parking - please ensure that you park your car in the bitumen parking area whenever possible as it will avoid a fine!

We are still looking for items that might have been found in an early orchid collector's camp in the rain forest. If you have items that you would be prepared to loan us, please see Adrian Jose, Sharon Lyster or Ken Jones.

As we will be pre-printing name cards for the plants in the display, could you please let the Editor know details of plants which are likely to be in flower for the WAOS show in later September. As we have done in past shows, we will preprint name cards that show the country of origin.

Your Committee discussed the clash between the September general meeting and the WAOS setup day and Cocktail Function in the evening. As it is likely that many members will be involved in WAOS, it is proposed to cancel the general meeting.

When you start repotting in spring (or as you are doing it now if you're like me), please remember to set aside some divisions for our silent auction in October - this is our major fundraiser and enables us to keep our membership fees low.

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Monthly Plant

These plants were purchased from Tinonee Orchids and have been grown on by Sharon. Laelia gouldiana (syn Laelia autumnalis) is found in Mexico where it grows as an epiphyte or lithophyte, although may now be extinct in its natural habitat. Laelia autumnalis was initially introduced to cultivation in 1836, and was described by Lindley in 1831. This is some conjecture about Laelia gouldiana with some claiming that it is merely a more colourful form of Laelia autumnalis, while others suggest that it may be a hybrid of Laelia autumnalis and Laelia anceps.
While the plant itself is reasonably compact, in common with some Laelia species (eg Laelia anceps) the flowers are carried on a long upright racemes, often nearly a metre tall. The 8cm flowers in are lilac-pink to magenta, and the flower segments are wider than most in the genus. The lip is darker in colour and has a white throat with dark veins. This species can have up to 10 flowers per raceme.
The epiphytic Laelia species are generally easy to grow in WA and do not need heat, although will benefit by culture which keeps them drier during our wet, cold winter months. Potting in pine bark is the simplest and most effective medium, however if you able to maintain good humidity during summer, mounting on hardwood slabs or similar mounts has also proven successful. This species is generally resistant to disease, although in common with Cattleya species and its hybrids, can be prone to cotton scale if there is insufficient air movement. They can also be slow to re-establish if divided into small plants, and should be grown in a medium that permits several years culture without repotting/remounting. As an autumn flowering species, the flowers are susceptible to Botrytis spotting and for this reason, should be kept out of the rain.
For photos, see ttp://www.slipperorchid.com/other_orchids/Laelia_gouldiana_Free_1.jpg

Gary Yong Gee says....Gillian's Laelia anceps does not have the correct lip shape for the species and looks to me be a L. anceps hybrid. This would also account for the extremely short inflorescences.

Mavis and I had a recent visit to Lyn & Lloyd Mullen in Queensland and were delighted to see a huge range of species orchids in Lloyd's bushhouse. Take a look HERE

While we were in Queensland, we attended a meeting of the Morton Species Orchid Group and saw many unusual species orchids for the first time. Take a look HERE

After the meeting, we were taken to see Phil Diamonds orchids. Phil had much too many species to take to the meeting. Take a a look HERE

And my thanks to Jay Pfahl and Dalton Holland Baptista for correcting some of the names. I really do appreciate your input. (At least it tells me that someone is reading the pages ;-) Tony

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IMPORTED PLANT NEWS

I have e-mailed Hans Hermans seeking a shipping date, indicating that in the absence of a confirmed date, I will need to delay his shipment until September as we have 230 Phalaenopsis species and hybrids from Joseph Wu Orchids in quarantine, and the order of over 500 plants from Sakdisri and Daughters Nursery due in late July.

For those of you participating in the order from Sakdisri, I have sent out pro-forma invoices for checking. Please ensure that you pay me at the next meeting for the cost of the plants as I need to give the cash to Tony and Mavis before they leave at the beginning of July.

We had an inspection on Monday 16 June and approximately 60-65% of the plants in quarantine have been released. However, some spotting on mature leaves of Dendrobium species D. griffithianum, D. palpebrae and D. dixanthum has resulted in the plants being taken across to AQIS for identification. Hopefully, this is just inactive bacterial spotting and should not create any problem - I will let you know the outcome at the meeting.

Ken

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WAOS for May, From Ben Deeley in Bunbury about the College Grove development (he has put us in contact with the director of the LANDCORP and she has sent a map of the area and has given us permission to explore the site - verbal only at this time), Various newsletters.

Last month, we made some progress with the 'botanical' rules following the start made in April where I commented on some of the pronunciation rules.

To finalise the pronunciation rules which is where we started out back in April, another common example is ii which is often pronounced e-i. Sometimes, a dieresis ( ) is placed over the second vowel to show that it should be pronounced separately (eg Aerangis), however is this symbol is often omitted because it is difficult to typeset. Further, a terminal ending 'ensis' to the specific epithet means 'from the place' (eg Oncidium riograndensis).

So, when faced by a strange name, firstly break it up into syllables containing just one vowel or diphthong (as shown in April). The consonants will largely look after themselves. For example Acanthephippium sylhetense becomes A-can-the-phipp-i-um syl-he-ten-se, or phonetically Ah-kan-the-fip-ee-um sil-he-ten-see. As you see, the phonetic conversion uses the English pronunciation. To finish off, here are some other facts that might be useful to know

The botanists and breeders have a significant impact on plant names. Sticking with species for the moment, Dendrobium kingianum is a very variable species with many different colours ranging red to white and all shades in between. For example, Dendrobium kingianum 'Corrigan's Red' is a particular cultivar. This was probably a plant of Dendrobium kingianum selected for a special characteristic, its deep red colour. This epithet is written in roman letters enclosed by inverted commas and is always the last name. Plants which bear this name should have been reproduced by meristem (tissue) culture, or a division of the original named plant. However, often unscrupulous dealers will use a recognised cultivar name to increase the price of a particular plant which may at best be similar to that which originally named. Compare this to the earlier example where the epithet album was used to indicate a more general feature. But the story doesn't end yet.

So far we've only scratched the surface. I hope that you'll find this intriguing if not interesting!. Sometimes we see an X after the generic name before the specific name, yet everything else looks the same as a species, eg Dendrobium X delicatum (recently described Jones D asThelychiton X delicatus). In this case the X indicates that this is a naturally occurring (man didn't have anything to do with it) hybrid between Dendrobium speciosum var. tarberi and Dendrobium kingianum. While there is continued debate about whether this is in fact a species (there are limited examples found in the wild) there is no agreed position. The simplest test is whether the plant ' breeds true', ie whether the progeny from a self or sibling pollination are the same as the parent. However, to avoid this becoming a debate, we'll continue to refer to it as a natural hybrid

The conventions and rules about naming species, the hierarchical system used to classify orchidaceae, and some other letters often seen after orchid species names when reading botanically correct publications follow. I'll look at why the names change, and what does the term 'synonym' mean.

Some other rules given by Morrison & Webb (1991) are:
(i) Many generic names and some specific epithets commemorate a person's name. Thus pronunciation should follow the pronunciation of the name, for example Barbosella named after J Barbosa Rodrigues. This can be broken up as Bar-bo-sell-a. However, while this is relatively straightforward exercise for English names, it can be quite a challenge for names of foreign origin in a language that is not natural to us, and whose rules we do not understand. For hybrids, this is particularly relevant given the amount of breeding coming out of Japan and Taiwan.
(ii) The consonants c and g change according to the vowel following. Generally, a 'hard sound' is used before a, o and u as cat, cot and gut. A soft sound is used e, i and y as cent, cinder, gin, cynical and cipher. The epithet coccinea therefore is pronounced kok-sin-e-a, whereas citrata would be pronounced si-tra-ta. Thus as a simple rule of thumb, c as k before a, o and u, and as s before e, i and y; ch mostly as k although as church if it is the first syllable of a word; j as jolly; ph as f; but y varies as y in cipher, y as in cygnet, or y as ee in jolly.
(iii) A bi or di in front of a word means two and is said with a long i before the rest of the word. For example, bigibbum is bi-jib-bum but not bi-gib-bum (although it is often mispronounced this way).
(iv) The last rule concerns which syllable to emphasise. If the vowel in the second last syllable is long, then that syllable is emphasised. For example, canaliculatum is can-al-i-cu-la-tum with the emphasis on the la which is long. However if the vowel in the second last syllable is short, then the emphasis is placed on the syllable immediately before it (even if it is the first in the word), for example Calochilus is Kal-ok-i-lus and lasianthera is las-ee-an-the-ra.

While there is much more that could be written, I feel that these simple rules will help enormously. If you have a plant with an unusual name, try using these rules and see whether it helps you to make sense of it.

The Species Society's library has a copy of Hawkes 'Encyclopaedia of Cultivated Orchids', which, in its index at the back, has the phonetic pronunciation of many orchid names. It was reading through this that first induced me to explore a little further to find out what the rules were.

The book that I have used for much of this series of articles is Morrison, G.C. and Webb, M.A. (1991) 'The Essentials of Orchid Growing' Kenthurst; Kangaroo Press. It only costs about $30.00 or so, contains a lot of useful information (but no pictures!) and I thoroughly recommend its purchase for serious orchid growers.

Over the past three months, we've taken a short journey through the mysterious and perplexing world of botanical names and descriptions. Now its time to take stock of what we've learnt (if anything!).

I started by introducing the notion of orchid species. You may remember that there are estimated to be between 17,000 and 35,000 different species in 700-1200 genera. I hope you now understand the difference between these two words, as they are often mixed up. Then, using the botanically correct method, we found out how to write orchid names - the generic name starting with a capital letter, the specific epithet (name) in lower case letters, and the whole lot in italics. You will also know that when you here someone say "Cymbidiums", they are using the common name for a class of plants, since all generic names are singular, and that someone who uses the specific epithet name only, eg" niveums" is also quite wrong since it is singular and must be in preceded by the generic name, although there are specific epithets such as Laelia anceps which is quite correct.

Along the way we also visited the naming conventions, the use of additional epithets, and cultivar names. The thorny issue of natural hybrids, indicated by the letter X before the specific epithet also reared its ugly head. The second instalment dealt with the heavy stuff, the classification system for all living things, and eventually, the groups to which Orchidaceae (orchids) belong. We encountered a few early botanists like Linneaus, Swartz and Lindley who were responsible for many of the present orchid generic and specific names. While it may annoy us that the names of our orchid plants keep changing, at least it tells us that someone is interested in the taxonomy of orchids which should be seen as a positive sign.

I also explained synonyms - often an earlier or invalid name that has become popular through custom and use, and continues to be used even though incorrect. Growers need to be careful about rushing out and changing all their plant labels each time someone tells them their plant is incorrectly named as there have been many revisions which have subsequently been discounted. Before you make such changes, try to find out where the revised name came from, and the standing of its proponent in the botanical world - that is, was it reported in a recognised journal such as Orchid Monographs from the Kew Herbarium or similar. If not, it is wise to err on the side of caution and leave well enough alone.

It is also true that many species, and probably some genera have not yet been described, and given the disappearance of the world's rainforests, may never be! It is said that in the disastrous Indonesian fires some years back that many of the unnamed species were lost forever. Generally they are the peculiar, small, insignificant orchids (described as 'botanicals') grown by enthusiasts.

I have also tried to provide a simple set of rules of thumb to help you pronounce those terrible names. We found out about diphthongs, about hard and soft sounds, about syllables and the placement of vowels. As I said in the beginning, it was like going back to school English. I hope that it has helped, and that some, if not all of you feel more confident about trying names you previously gave up on. I thoroughly recommend Hawkes Encyclopaedia of Cultivated Orchids as it gives the phonetic pronunciation of many more names that any of us are likely to need. Perhaps this series of articles have prompted you to read a little further - if so Morrison and Webb's book is a worthwhile investment, and has a lot of useful information about orchid cultivation, although few pictures of orchid flowers.

With respect to the particular rules for naming hybrids, many are named after their originator, for example Moirara which is hybrid of Phalaenopsis x Renanthera x Vanda named after its breeder W W G Moir, or MacLelllanara which is a hybrid of Brassia x Odontoglossum x Oncidium named by its breeder, Rod McLellan Co. Other hybrids use a combination of the genera, for example Brassolaeliocattlaya which is a hybrid of Brassia x Laelia x Cattleya. On our recent trip to Thailand, what was confusing to people was the correct spelling of these compound names when I asked them to ensure that they were written in full and spelt correctly. I had hoped to find a simple set of botanical rules that I could pass on, but it was not to be. I will undertake further reading and research to learn what I can so that I can pass it on in a future newsletter.

I hope that you found the topic interesting, and that it has increased your knowledge about an area of your hobby that was perhaps foreign to you in the past. I've enjoyed rewriting it, and again have learnt from the experience.

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" A Manual of Orchidaceous Plants by James Veitch 1894. 785 pages. Descriptions of more orchid species than you can poke a stick at, and heaps more black & white pictures.
" Sanders Orchid Guide by the Sanders Brothers 1927. 456 pages. Lots of stuff on Orchid Culture plus species descriptions. No Pictures.
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