Dont you love it when they reshuffle the taxonomies? lol.

I usually dont consider it a real big deal for me personally unless I plan to enter an official judging contest or plan to hybridize certain plants that have been affected by the name change.

But I am sure this is a pain for professional growers who need to keep their inventories properly updated.

So now we have Sc. Mini Purple, Odontocidium Wildcat and many other changes. I'm not going to bother with please correct your tags lists in the local orchid society bulletin any more. But i'll try and keep the results lists up to date.

Thwaitesara is Thwaites ara, a genera named after someone called Thwaites. Didn't really inderstand the question in the above post "just a genus name placeholder?"??????

I am going to ignore them since the new names are being disputed back and forth anyhow. Just picture a 'Sophronitis' purpurata ...

Carol, i was too till all these changes appeared in the RHS register. Sophronitis purpurata. Eeeck! The registrar at the RHS has gone loopy.

I think the needs of orchid growers and science are different.

Things like this drive me crazy...I don't know why...I guess because I'm so anal about "pedigree" that it bothers me...

I'm just wondering how many more cattleya-type genera are being created.

One would think at some point in time all these taxonomy findings/studies would be complete and this reshuffling would come to an end. Or does this stuff continue to infinity as science and its methods become more sophisticated? Maybe in 50, 100, 200 years it will all be over?

K

I coined the term "genus name placeholder" which technically is a temporary name until RHS assigns a permanent one once they sort things out. Since the word "wait" appears in Thwaitesara, this made me think that it is temporary, LOL. I tried to Google it but never got any useful results. But, I might be wrong...

-Harvey

>> One would think at some point in time all these taxonomy findings/studies would be complete and this reshuffling would come to an end

One would think.
Pluto had a good run for several decades until it got demoted.
If they can do that to planets, who knows what they can do to plants :)

Harvey, here is Thwaitesara Johnny Letcher, formerly Blc. Johnny Letcher.
It is one of the hundreds of "Cattleyas" that i own.
Apart from changing the plant tag, i should change the name of the image on the Society web page.
Sigh!
I though the AOS and the AOC were going to discuss these mooted changes with the registrar.

Here is a link that might be useful: I need to have a plant tag change

I have so many old historical hybrids, I'm not about to change the tag just because they're not taxonomically correct.

This information is about to be published in the next Supplement to the Orchid Review. This will be available as a downloadable .pdf file from the AOS and RHS websites in due course.

These changes are all due to the implementation of the genera proposed in Genera Orchidacearum vol. 4, affecting the Laeliinae.
basically the Brazilian laelias go in to Sophronitis, Guarianthe is separated from Cattelya, Rhyncholaelia is separated form Brassavola, and Schomburgkia dissapears split between Laelia and Myrmecophila.

Thwaitesara = Cattleya x Guarianthe x Sophronitis x Rhyncholaelia

Guarisophyleya = Guarianthe x Sophronitis x Cattleya
Terry

One of my favorite recent tongue-twisters is the new name for Epicatt - since epidendrum became prosthechia it was Cattleychia (ugh!). But now I understand that epi. is no longer prosthechia, but now something I can't remember.
Cheers - Nancy

Ah, but Nancy, if the Cattleya used as a parent was a C. skinneri or bowringiana, which have been changed to Guarianthe, then a former Epc is has now become a Guaricyclia (double ugh!) -- that is, if they didn't use a Prosthechea instead of a straight Encyclia/Epidendrum. If they used a Prosthechea fragrans (formerly Epi fragrans and Encylic fragrans), then you now have a Guarechea (triple ugh!)

Now, your old Laeliocattleya are no longer so if they used a Laelia purpurata as a parent with a C. bicolor -- which now becomes a Sophrocattleya .... unless they used a Central American C. bowringiana, where it now becomes a Sophranthe hybrid.

Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's why they've asked Julian to slow down and quit changing all the hybrid names at the RHS until a decision was made as to whether they should be. At this point in time it almost makes their 100+ year old hybrid registry dysfunctional since they don't offer the old hybrid names at all which, are the ones we are still using -- dealers, judges and hobbyists.

Thanks for the info Terry. Basically, one can have a plants that can span easily across 4 genera :)

My 2 cents... any online or PC software that has a name lookup feature should have a field bearing the old genus that a particular cross was originally assigned. It would probably help someone whose into tracing the geneology of their plants since the old genera are the ones that most people are used to.