Monday, January 17, 2011

Sophrolaeliocattleya Kararizi Dawn 'Red Star'... or is it?

Our Sophrolaeliocattleya (Slc.) Kararizi Dawn 'Red Star' [bought from Exotic Plant Company (EPC)] has bloomed, with two gorgeous red flowers. Slc.  are intergeneric bybrids, with plants from the genera Sophronitis, Laelia and Cattleya in their ancestry. Wikipedia suggests there has been quite a bit of taxonomic upheaval in this group, and Slc. is probably not the correct name for many (if any) of them any more... I can't seem to find this particular hybrid in the RHS database either. :/ These plants apparently like fairly warm temperatures and quite a lot of light.
Slc. Kararizi Dawn 'Red Star'
Both flowers
Two more buds on their way - yay! Judging from how quickly the last flowers developed, they should open in about 2 weeks or less.
Close up of the labellum.
Interestingly, these flowers (and the others we saw already in bloom at EPC) are very red, with hardly any yellow and quite narrow petals; the "official" picture for this particular hybrid shows a lot of yellow, and much broader petals:
Slc. Kararizi Dawn 'Red Star'. Pic courtesy Exotic Plant Company.
I think I prefer the style of the ones we have to the "official" picture! It also seems possible that either EPC or their suppliers got the hybrid name a bit wrong; whilst googling Sophrolaeliocattleya, I came across something called Slc. Kagaribi Dawn 'Red Star'; this picture looks a lot more like ours! Also, the only google result for the name on the label is at the EPC website, whilst Kagaribi Dawn 'Red Star' gets quite a lot of hits. There is also an entry for Kagaribi Dawn (a hybrid of C. Kagaribi and C. Tropic Dawn - which are hybrids of hybrids too!) in the RHS database - looks like these plants are now considered to be Cattleya...!

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