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Orchid
News # 34
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XIX WOC
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Giants
of the orchid world were plentiful in the South Florida
of the mid 1960’s. Orchid hybridizers
like Louis Vaughn with his pioneer work on Phalaenopsis,
Gene and Norman Merkel of the firm Alberts and Merkel,
and Bob Scully of Jones and Scully were at the top
of a rather large group of experienced growers who
were changing the orchid world. It was into this
arena that I started my hybridizing trek and fortunately
free from commercial restraint was able to choose “The
Road Less Traveled”: or in my case, creating Cymbidium and Odontoglossum type
hybrids which would grow and bloom well in tropical
as well as temperate climates.
After
forty years, I can assure you that there were many
mistakes along the way. In fact, I once authored
an article entitled “How to Kill Your Orchids”,
which is still an Internet favorite. I have often thought
I should do a program on “Frankensteins of the
Orchid World” – otherwise known as
“Milton’s Monsters! But after more than
ten thousand hybrid attempts I am pleased to say that
providence has granted me a few successes and those
will be the subject of this paper.
It
has been said that “no man is an island” and
that is never more true than in my case. Starting first
with Cymbidiums I made several visits to California
to visit with and learn from notable growers there
-- people like, Earnest Heatherington, Paul Gripp,
Paul Miller, Lloyd DeGarmo, Mary Beau Ireland, Emma
Menninger, and Andy Easton. Everyone there was eager
to encourage me but had little or no true experience
in growing or hybridizing Cymbidiums for a semi-tropical
area like South Florida. My special thanks go to Andy
Easton who was especially helpful with information
regarding the various Cymbidium species, their
places of origin and native climates.
At one time I had approximately thirty different Cymbidium species
which came from warm or intermediate climates throughout
the world. Of these, one species, Cymbidum ensifolium proved
to be the most successful in producing progeny with
the desired temperature tolerance. This species wants
to bloom perfectly for us in the middle of the summer
when our daytime temperatures are almost 100° Fahrenheit
and night temperatures are approaching 80° Fahrenheit.
Other desirable traits of this species are a delightful
fragrance, erect inflorescence and particularly modest
plant size. Flowers of ensifolium are small (approximately
1”) but those of its progeny can be substantially
larger into the second generation as we shall see.
The first ensifolium hybrid we obtained (from Lloyd
DeGarmo, I believe) was Cym. Peter Pan ‘Greensleeves’ (ensifolium x
Miretta) and while it was sterile as a diploid (2n),
[having the normal two sets of chromosomes], the tetraploid
(4n) form which was created by Don Wimber was found
to be fertile.
Most
hybrids with Peter Pan were however, subject to producing “muddy”
flower colors, a trait probably coming from using the “standard”
form of ensifolium in making the hybrid. It is interesting
to note that we have had a large plant of Cym.
Peter Pan ‘Greensleeves’(2n), which stayed
in bloom for more than 18 months, with new spikes continuously
replacing those that were fading. The tetraploid form
of this plant however, has never bloomed more than
twice a year, regardless of plant size. We have found
that many progeny of the crossing of Cym. ensifolium with
a ‘standard’
winter blooming Cymbidium will produce progeny
which lack an inheritance for specific “dating” as
to flower initiation and thus can bloom at any time
of the year!
The above stated blooming characteristic of the diploid
and tetraploid forms, is true also of the second ensifolium
hybrid we wish to discuss: Cymbidium Golden
Elf ‘Sundust’. The difference here is that
the diploid Golden Elf does produce progeny and being
a “pure color” (no noticeable anthrocyanin
in the flowers) opens the door for better colored hybrids.
As in the Peter Pan hybrid, converting the Golden Elf ‘Sundust’ into
a tetraploid produces a somewhat fuller flower with
heavier substance and better lasting qualities, the
latter of which is one of the shortcomings of these
hybrids.
Cymbidium Florida
Cracker ‘Topaz’ (Wild Colonial
Boy x Golden Elf ‘Sundust’ 4n) is a new
hybrid made by Andy Easton which is appropriately named.
It loves our Florida climate, exhibits high color,
is about 7.5 cm in flower size and has good erect spikes.
The pod parent is itself 25% ensifolium.
Cymbidium Carpenter’s Golden Anniversary ‘Green
Pastures’
HCC/AOS (Golden Elf ‘Sundust’ x Nellie
Preston) is a fine example of “pure color” progeny
from Golden Elf ‘Sundust’. Eighteen flowers
per spike is quite an improvement from the five to
seven flowers normally found on the species ensifolium
grandparent.
Cymbidium Octoberfest
(4n) (Golden Elf ‘Sundust’ (4n)
x Red Beauty ‘Carmen’ (4n)) is a nice example
of a high colored hybrid. It was originally made by
the late Bartley Schwarz of Half Moon Bay, California
and registered by him in 1991. This picture is from
our re-make in 1997 using the tetraploid Golden Elf.
Several years ago Bartley sent me pollen of his FCC/AOS
awarded standard Cymbidium Via Ambarino ‘Highland’ which
had huge 15 cm. flowers and I immediately placed it
on the diploid form of Golden Elf ‘Sundust’.
I had about 300 plants of this about a year from blooming
when I received an envelope in the mail from Bartley
in which he enclosed a picture of this cross, which
he had made a year before me, and without my knowledge
he had named the cross for me! Neither of us knew the
other had made this cross and a year later when my
plants started to bloom, this one clone ‘Everglades
Gold’ stood out above all the others. It likes
to bloom in October and again in April for us, but
can bloom any time during those months. With a natural
spread of 10.7 cm., it is the largest flowered and
the most beautiful second generation ensifolium hybrid
we have seen. Cymbidium Milton Carpenter ‘Everglades
Gold’
AM/AOS has been mericloned, is popular in Europe as
well as the USA, and it is the only plant we have ever
patented.
One of our early hybrids was Cym. Tender Love
(parishii ‘Sanderae’
x ensifolium ‘album’) and it exhibited
quite a variety of color in its various clones. Because
parishii is considered one of the warmer growing, “standard” cymbidium
species its combination with ensifolium has produced
an extremely heat tolerant hybrid which can bloom at
any time of the year and frequently three or four times
a year on a single plant. Plant stature is small to
medium in this cross and it has been an excellent parent.
Cymbidium Reverend
Miriam Dulany ‘Prayer
Warrior’ is a spectacular and unusually marked
clone from the crossing of Tender Love ‘Aunt
Miriam’
x Candy Floss ‘Spring Show’. Pollen from
the latter parent was given to me by Andy Easton some
years ago when he was still in New Zealand.
One of our best reds to date is Cym.
Jungle King ‘Everglades’
AM/AOS which was made using the same Tender Love ‘Aunt
Miriam’ with Dream Girl ‘Royale’ AM/AOS,
made possible again because of pollen from a friend
in California.
A few years ago I asked my friend Don Wimber how we
could create a tetraploid plant of Cymbidium ensifolium.
He suggested that I make a selfing of a good clone
of the species, send him the pod, he would colchicine
treat it, start the plants and send to me when ready
to remove from the flask. We did this with a fine alba
clone and a few years later received the flask with
about 25 plants in it. We grew these up and found one
which was obviously a tetraploid, which we named ‘Belle
Glade’ This is a real step forward as we are
now able to use a tetraploid ensifolium for the next
generation of breeding, as we have done with these
two crosses:
Cymbidium Chian-tzy
Mascot (4n) (Golden Elf ‘Sundust’ (4n)
x ensifolium ‘Belle Glade’ (4n)). This
hybrid, originally made by Chian-tzy with a diploid,
is predictably a “pure color” light yellow
in our tetraploid cross and this should be a very important
parent to build upon for the future. Quite small plant
stature from the 75% ensifolium is a definite plus.
Cymbidium Memoria
Lillian Padgett (4n) [Kusuda Shining ‘Brick’
(4n) x ensifolium ‘Belle Glade’ (4n)]
is another new and exciting high color tetraploid,
which we feel has tremendous potential as a parent
of the future.
Some thirty or so years ago when planning a visit to
Hawaii, I was told by a friend that I should visit
U and learn about his work in breeding temperature
tolerance into various intergeneric combinations
within the Oncidiinae. Upon visiting him,
he quickly convinced me that this was another area
with tremendous potential and he promised to become
my mentor. Goodale was an excellent correspondent,
answering my every communication within the week
and over a period of several years I amassed two
large files of letters from him.
Hybridizing within the Oncidiinae was
much more complex, with a variety of genera from
which to choose but also with increased sterility
dangers due to the different chromosome counts which
could be encountered. I was especially pleased when,
in 1982, at the urging of his wife Mae and myself,
Goodale agreed to pen the book on “Creating Oncidiinae Intergenerics” This
book, while now somewhat dated is the only complete
tome on the subject, and the author is still the most
experienced Oncidiinae hybridizer the world has known.
The goal here is to combine the beauty of the cool
growing Odontoglossums (and Odontiodas) with various
others within the Oncidiinae to improve their hardiness
and temperature tolerance. Only very occasionally this
was accomplished in the first generation as it usually
took two or three generations to arrive at a satisfactory
combination -- with many a poor cross along the way!
The Brazilian Miltonias were a subject of much hybridization
and the most successful species, in spite of its single
flowered inflorescence, proved to be Miltonia spectabilis.
Quite variable, with many varieties from which to choose, ‘Moreliana’
was most often used. Goodale made this cross for us,
sending us the seed pod, and the best one we bloomed
was named Miltonia Seminole Blood ‘Everglades
Chief’.
Made
by Bob Hamilton of San Francisco California and registered
by Everglades Orchids, Miltonia Darth Vader was a
well designed cross of two very dark Brazilian Miltonias.
The clone ‘Dark Pool’ is thought
to be a tetraploid. The pod parent, made some years
ago by Milton Warne of Hawaii, is still being grown
in quantities in Europe for pot plant sales.
Bob,
a microbiologist with a sterling reputation as a
hybridizer within the Odontoglossum alliance, used
the tetraploid Miltonia Bluntii ‘Stormy Weather’
with Miltonia clowesii ‘Rodco’ (4n) to
create Miltonia Xenia (4n) and large strikingly
marked flowers resulted. These tetraploid Miltonias
exhibit much longer lasting qualities and heavier flower
substance.
Combining Brassia with Miltonia produces easy
growing flowers of large size and open shape. Miltassia Erachne,
a Miltassia which I had obtained from The Beall
Company in Seattle Washington showed great promise
for color and its combination with Miltonia Seminole
Blood was a real eye-catcher. Miltassia Royal
Robe ‘Jerry’s Pick’ HCC/AOS became
an easy to grow favorite and due to cloning was available
to all. A “sport”
or anomaly from the cloning resulted in the peloric
Royal Robe ‘Milt’s Pick’ HCC/AOS
showing much fuller petals.
Miltassia Tranquility, a cross of Miltassia Aztec ‘Everglades
Green’ and Miltonia Golden Fleece ‘Asheville’ was
a fairly successful attempt to produce a variety of
large pastel flowered progeny with strong plant vigour.
Miltassia Andy Easton is a brand new hybrid
involving the Miltassia Royal Robe ‘Jerry’s
Pick’ and Miltonia Darth Vader
‘Dark Force’, the latter is one of the
darkest Miltonias we have bloomed. The color saturation
in this hybrid is outstanding and beyond what the computer
can reproduce.
In October of 1975 Nancy and I spent a month in Brazil
with Dr. Anton Ghillany to observe, photograph, and
collect a few plants within the Oncidiinae. It was
a wonderful experience, if at times harrowing (hacking
through jungles, climbing over and under fallen trees
and witnessing nature at its best). The number one
goal was to observe and perhaps collect a few plants
of the true, large flowered Oncidium crispum (also
known at that time as ‘Grandiflorum’). Oncidium
crispum ‘Everglades’ AM/AOS is one
of the clones we collected and when combined with Miltassia
Star Fighter, produced the excellent Aliceara Mervyn
Grant ‘Talisman Cove’. This cross is named
for our now deceased friend of Durban, South Africa,
Mr. Mervyn Grant. It produces 10 cm. flowers on long
arching spikes and while no Odontoglossum is present
it is still a striking plant which can be grown warm
or cool. Talisman Cove is the clonal epithet of Mr.
Charles Marden Fitch of New York who is one of the
world’s finest orchid photographers.
The cross of Miltassia Green
Goddess ‘Everglades’ with Odontoglossum Somelle
is an excellent example of how the Odont pollen parent
can fill out the segments and produce a large 10 cm.
flower with beauty and character. This combination
is named Degarmoara Everglades Sunshine ‘Pure
Gold’
and the intergeneric hybrid was named for Mr. Lloyd
DeGarmo of California.
With the same Odontoglossum pollen parent, Degarmoara Everglades
Jubilee ‘Snow Prints’ AM/AOS has more flowers
per spike than Everglades Sunshine, equally large (10+cm)
flowers and has inherited the white color from Mtssa.
Cartagena. The dark spotting against the white background
creates a striking contrast.
Beallara, named for Ferguson Beall of the Beall
Company of Seattle, Washington is a combination of
Brassia, Miltonia, Odontoglossum and Cochlioda. Goodale
made Beallara Tahoma Glacier and our clone ‘Sugar
Sweet’
AM/AOS produced as many as 16 flowers on a five foot,
branched inflorescence with the flowers attaining a
natural spread of 12.5 cm -- when grown by the late
Ben Berliner! We were never able to duplicate those
lofty figures but its combination with the rather ordinary Miltonia Purple
Queen produced one of the finest Oncidiine intergenerics
to date: Beallara Peggy Ruth Carpenter
‘Morning Joy’. This clone has become one
of the favorites of commercial growers all over the
world due to its commanding beauty, large flowers,
and especially its early blooming qualities. At the
time of our visit to Wichmann Orchideen in Celle Germany
(September, 2007) we were shown a plant in flower taken
from a plug tray by Johan and Christian Wichmann. Some
variation is observable in the thousands of plants
of this clone with a few showing possible ploidy doubling.
Vuylstekeara is an intergeneric combination
of Miltonia, Odontoglossum and Cochlioda and
while the first ones were made using the cooler growing Miltoniopsis,
more recent hybrids have been made using the Brazilian
Miltonias especially the species spectabilis ‘Moreliana’.
Andy Easton and Tom Perlite of San Francisco collaborated
to make Vuyl. Memoria Mary Kavanaugh using a tetraploid Miltonia
spectabilis. Andy then created the lovely Vuyl.
Marion Sheehan ‘Matriarch’ by combining
Mary Kavanaugh with Odontioda Shelley ‘Spring
Dress’ and even though this hybrid contains just
25% Brazilian Miltonia, it is still intermediate
to cool in its climate preferance.
An extremely rare occurrence was observed when we
crossed the vigorous and warm growing Oncidium sphacelatum with Odontioda Flaming
Planet for it produced, as a first generation combination,
excellent red and white flowers reminiscent of the Odontioda,
but with great warmth tolerance. A strong, compact
plant with beautiful arching spikes, this one begs
to be cloned and shared with the world. Wilsonara Flaming
Space ‘Flash Gordon’
is but one of the better clones but they were all of
an excellent quality.
Odontocidium Memoria
Vance Denton ‘Dottie’s
Love’
is the choice result of pairing Odcdm. Eric
Kuhn ‘Malvern’
with Oncidium maculatum. Extra dose of heat
tolerance here from the 50% Oncidium maculatum involved.
Care must be taken that one does not assume that all
Oncidiums will impart warmth tolerance! Many Odontocidium
and Wilsonaras have been made in recent years using Oncidium
tigrinum for example, and while a high degree of
beautifully shaped and colored flowers of large size
have generally resulted, most of the progeny require
intermediate to cool conditions. Why? Because Oncidium
tigrinum occurs at five to six thousand feet in the
mountains of Mexico and thus do not have a high tolerance
of low land tropical conditions
Wilsonaras are among our favorite Oncidiinae intergenerics
when a warm Oncidium species is featured in
the mix as is the case with Wilsonara Chocolate
Decadence. As a cross it has produced vigorous plants
with many flowered, branched inflorescences and flowers
of 7.5 cm. in size. Its rich chocolate color is inherited
from species we collected many years ago - Oncidium
powellii (from Panama) and Oncidium crispum (from
Brazil).
One of the most striking Wilsonaras is Wils. Jerry
Stephens ‘Everglades Dazzler’ with 15 to
20 flowers on strong spikes. Inheriting plenty of temperature
tolerance from the Oncidium sphacelatum and powellii,
this hybrid will perform warm or cool as will pratically
all of the hybrids we are outlining herein.
Some years ago we created the hybrid Wilsonara Bubba
Mock. This hybrid had long spikes with rather ordinary Oncidium type
flowers toward the terminus. It was a cross of Oncidium Camino
Dorado (panamense x stenotis) with Odontioda Moseman ‘Fall
Colors’. Our later pairing of Wils. Bubba
Mock and Odontioda Florence Stirling ‘Perfection’
resulted in some of the most beautiful “temperature
tolerant” Wilsonaras we have seen – Wils.
My Quest ‘Solar Fire’ and its sibling Wils.
My Quest ‘Impossible Dream’. These 7 to
8 cm. flowers have all the beauty of modern Odontoglossums
and are on compact plants with nice arching spikes.
Should there be any success in what I have attempted,
all credit should be given to the creator of our universe,
as well as to those orchidists on whose shoulders I
have stood for a short time, and who have proferred
wisdom, encouragement, plants and pollen. For the many
failures along the way (past and future), I take full
credit!
Milton O. Carpenter
A native of the Florida Everglades, Milton has been
growing orchids for 46 years and is the owner of Everglades
Orchids, Inc. in Belle Glade, Florida.He is a past
president and life member of the Orchid Society of
the Palm Beaches. He is also President, Trustee, life
member, and accredited judge for the American Orchid
Society.
Milton is a world-renowned speaker, author, hybridizer,
grower, photographer and explorer, having made numerous
trips to different countries of the world to study
and photograph orchids in their habitat. His quest
in hybridizing has been to “take the road less
traveled” and develop new hybrids within the
Oncidiinae and Cymbidiinae, which will thrive in warm
as well as cool climates.
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