Dendrobium Magenta Magic

Gorgeous!

 

Beautiful flower.

 

Is this from Blaine? The ones from Gerardus Staal? When yours gets bigger I'd be up for swapping http://www.csnjc.org/March2012/denmagentamagic.html

 

Ha, you're the person we were talking about at the SF show!

Any luck with pollination? Mine seems sterile as dirt. Doesn't breed to others, with other pollen, nor itself. I've tried to remove and store the pollen a couple days (in effort to mimic bird pollination). Nothing! I've got an appointment with a friend to put a sample through flow cytometry to find out if it has some terrible ploidy. I'd love to have a sib cross of this or be able to make more hybrids. I'll keep you posted with a chromosome count of mine (of the same batch).

 

It was my speculation that either a) it is an amphidiploid that does not behave like a diploid or b) it has unreduced gametes and a fractional ploidy.

I know there has to be some cuthbertsonii that did not fully convert and are variable chromosome numbers. Bob has done counts on some of the newer lines and has some confirmed 4N. Unfortunately, I'm sure there are a fine few that are euploidic, such as this population of Magenta Magic that I feel Staal probably treated with oryzalin right?

 

I have 4 clones of this batch. one of them is especially vigorous, and I've bred several times with it, as a seed parent (doesn't work as a pollen parent), pollinated with cuthbertsonii pollen. The pods develop well, the amount of seeds inside is decent, but never great. Germination if fair, not excellent, plantlet development is more proliferative than , for example, pure cuthbertsonii, but still, I have some decent plantlets out of flask of this MM x cuthbertsonii cross.
There is something more to say about this cross. Gerardus never managed to remake the cross, and all 4 plants I've here have such a strong purplish flush to the leaves, and so big flowers, mostly orange or yellow/orange bicolor... I can't help thinking there has been some mix up, at some stage of the flasking, with another of Gerardus's cross, D. obtusisepalum (chrysopterum) x cuthbertsonii. The result of this cross should much better explain the plant/flower type I observe on my 4 clones. The plant from this post, has such a vibrant purple, and big flower, I would assess it to another one of these Peninsula Hybrids crosses, sulawesiense x cuthbertsonii. But that would again involve a lot of mess/mix up, so that's just a feeling, no proof.

For those willing to breed with cuthbertsonii primary hybrids, I have obtained pods, seeds, plantlets of the following, back crossed with cuthbertsonii pollen ( using their pollen has always been futile):

victoria regina x cuthbertsonii (Flower baby) x cuthbertsonii
prasinum x cuthbertsonii (Gina Perlite) x cuthbertsonii
miyakei (?) x cuthbertsonii (Magenta Magic) x cuthbertsonii
ceraula x cuthbertsonii (Misty Magic) x cuthbertsonii
aphanochilum x cuthbertsonii (not yet registered) x cuthbertsonii (pods maturing)
sulawesiense x cuthbertsonii (not yet registered) x cuthbertsonii (pods maturing)

all attempts to pollinate cuthbertsonii x laevifolium (Aussie Hilo) and cuthbertsonii x bracteosum (Nagomi) with cuthbertsonii pollen have failed up to now.

Laurent

 

I had very much wanted to put either my Aussie Hilo or cuthbertsonii x prasinum (Gina Perlite) to my Magenta Magic. Zero success both ways.

 

For whatever reasons, it seems that hybrids between widely different species, tend to be partly female-fertile, but very poorly male fertile.

 

Have you had any success in hybrid selfing?

 

I wanted to get it into a full flower as a specimen before I tear it apart.

 

A Dendrobium Magenta Magic