Every once in a while, I run into something unusual when it comes to orchids. Once I encountered a Phalaenopsis with two spikes, each had different colored flowers. But here is today's surprise.




When I purchased this a few weeks back, I was hoping for a medium sized bubble gum pink Phragmipedium. Well so far, so good. Until this morning when the first bud opened, I was both surprised and disappointed to find this. A slipper without a lip.
The hybrid is Phrag. QF Ula'ula. It is a hybrid of Phrag. Eric Young x Phrag. Haley Decker.
This is something that I have not seen ever before.
I would, by the way, never see something like this at judging because no one should bring a flower to judging missing parts. It would be eliminated from consideration on the spot!!

Now for the teaching moment!!
Years and years ago, the Orchid 🌎 was rocked by the "Great Benlate Scare"! Benlate was a treatment for fungal and bacterial problems with orchids. Plants, principally Phalaenopsis appeared by the hundreds with missing lips, double lips, petals without sepals, sepals without petals as well as other variations too many to list. They found out that Benlate was causing chromosome abnormalities. Those abnormalities appeared most often in the flowers. So could a chemical be causing this missing lip? Perhaps.

Cause 2- could this be a 'spontaneous mutation caused by excessive cloning? Well as far as I know, they still can not clone either Phragmipediums or Phalaenopsis. So that is not the cause.
Cause 3- environmental? Excessive temperature is a possibility as a spike develops. I guess that is possible but I tend to doubt it.

So now another good point to mention too is over cloning. Well we eliminated cloning as a cause.

NOW WHAT CAN BE DONE?????
NOTHING!!! Remember that this hybrid was just registered in 2019 I think by Quintal Farms. There are no awards as of yet.
Will this problem occur with every blooming or with every flower? Well that we can't be sure of because with a new to the market hybrid, there isn't a history to fall back on. Slipperless orchids are extremely rare as far as I know. BUT fortunately, there is another bud forming behind this one. Will this flower also be lacking a pouch? I sure hope not, it is a really nice color and I would like to keep it. I will know one way or the other in about a month.
But here is another question to consider. Say this inflorescence produces all its flowers without a lip, should I toss it. Probably not!! Maybe it will produce perfect flowers when it blooms again. I might give it a total of three times to bloom and produce normal flowers. If it never does, then toss it.

Fascinating! My very first thought was - is part of the parentage this particular pouch - less Orchid?


and

as part of this thread, close to the end of that day
https://garden.org/thread/view...

and https://www.orchidweb.com/orch...
and so on.

Wow. This species slipped my mind completely. Having never specialized or grew these guys until a couple of years back, Phragmipedium lindenii was not in my memory banks at all, kudos to Ursula for reminding me.
When I get a chance, I may want to take a look, just for curiosity sake and see if that 'lack of a pouch' ever carried forth through hybrids. I am guessing not because without pouches, wouldn't that be a dead end in breeding? One would think so.
Now my interest has been peaked!!

I just did a check and it is not pouchless due to parentage.
As I said it is EricYoung by Haley Decker.
Phrag. Eric Young is Phrag. besseae x Phrag. longifolium. Nothing pouchless there.
Phrag. Haley Decker is a bit more complex. It is Phrag. kovachii x Phrag. Saint Ouen.
Phrag. Saint Ouen is Phrag. Hanne Popow x Phrag. besseae.
Phrag. Hanne Popow is Phrag. besseae x Phrag. schlimii! So when you break it all down, there isn't any Phragmipedium lindenii in the background here either.

On the web it said that lindenii was the only slipperless slipper. Cool 😎
And it was a form ( variety ) of Phragmipedium wallisii. Everybody still awake!!! 💤💤💤💤💤💤

I nodded off halfway through this! 😴😴😴

Alright, how cool is that! Ok, none of the pouchless gene!

I remember Gilberto, our wonderful guide in Ecuador, pointing up on this really steep hill to show us this pouch-less, very unusual Orchid. This one was a bit steep to just climb up for us, so he took my camera and went up in no time flat to take those particular pictures. That man was amazing, every evening he sat down with me to identify every Orchid in my camera! That's why I remembered! Talk about luck, Klaus and I and Gilberto, we were the whole group on that whole trip!
Thank you Bill for those generous acorns!

Yes, I would keep your plant around too and see what it does!

That's good. I am going to do that.

I was wondering if it was the plant's first flower? I've found in the past that the first flowers can be warped, wonky, I had fused petals on one I had (multi floral Paphiopedilum) It took a few flowers before the flowers started looking as they should.

Oh yes. It is a first time bloomer and registered just three years ago. You add those two together and in my experience that typically points to the cross being made in maybe 2013, or 2014. Give them 12-18 months in a mother flask. Reflask around late 2015 or 2016.
A few may have bloomed in 2018 or 2019 so they registered the cross on-line with KEW. They might have sold smaller seedlings in 2020. And this guy I bought 6 weeks ago, with the bud just emerging from between the leaves.
As I stated before there are no images on line and no awards from anywhere in the world.

I wonder if people do not commonly try to cross with Lindenii be cause the outcome is potentially pouchless paphs? Does this mean the gene might be dominant? (I should not even ask because I do not know much about genetics). I think it would not interest a great many people, and should not be put in the breeding pool.

KatyLLL said: I wonder if people do not commonly try to cross with Lindenii be cause the outcome is potentially pouchless paphs? Does this mean the gene might be dominant? (I should not even ask because I do not know much about genetics). I think it would not interest a great many people, and should not be put in the breeding pool.

Yet, if one were to succeed to breed this pouchless species with a kovachii, the Orchid world might be on its toes and pay thousands of bucks? 🙂 I just chose kovachii, because of the gorgeous color. Could be besseae too.

The way I feel about that is the lack of a pouch is very undesirable! So much so that it might very well be looked at as an oddity, a freak, something people would not want to buy.
Hybridizing is built so much on sales. If you cross A and B and get a very beautiful C, that's $$$ in sales. That's orchids in collections. That's a good thing.
If breeding A with B gives you Q, a freaky flower, yes you might sell a few, but not as something people have got to have above all else, but as a novelty.

In terms of AOS and judging, the whole judging system is based on the founding principle of producing superior plants. Plants better then both parents! Producing offspring minus a lip does not achieve that goal.

Maybe this is a bad analogy, I don't know but if you breed for a dog with 3 legs, instead of 4, what would that do to the pet industry and dog breeding??
Yet we as humans will readily adopt a pet missing a leg, or an ear, or whatever. They make terrific pets!!! I am sure of that.
Doesn't mean that we should now breed for them.

Good point!

Well as you can plainly see, the second flower on Phragmipedium Ula' Ula has a pouch!



I think that most of us will agree that this is a beautiful pink hybrid. This second flower has broader petals, nearly 1 1/2" from top to bottom and this one seems to have better color saturation.
If you scroll back, you will find that this is a Phragmipedium kovachii hybrid.

And Ursula, you will have your own clone come Thursday! I can't wait to tour the collection, catch up on everything, and talk orchids. Give my best to Klaus!!!

Form is very good, dorsal and pouch properly aligned and dare I say it, it's an AM flower. "All dressed up and no where to judge it!!"

Oh my!! This is just gorgeous!!

Save travels, Bill!! Looking forwards to your visit!!

Just about 48 hours.

@BigBill
We had a lovely time, chatting away! Bill, this was FUN!! And super generous! I better do well with your lovely plants!

I told you that I have faith in your abilities to grow beautiful orchids. AND thank you again for your hospitality, support and friendship!!
Not to mention the fact that I have a bunch of new plants myself! Both orchids and succulents! Thank you again. It was so good to see the both of you!

Wishing you more flowers then you can count!!!! Bill

Bill, Thank you !