Published by

Published by

Pisang Press

P. O. Box 61842

Santa Barbara, CA 93160

USA

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E-mail: lance@lancebirk.com

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First Edition published 1983

Second Edition published 2004

THE PAPHIOPEDILUM GROWER’S MANUAL

Second Edition - Revised

by Lance A. Birk

Published 2004

Design and layout by the author in consultation with Dennis L. Runyen

Technical assistance: Jerilynne Nibbe, Dylan Hannon and Gary C. Gallup

Text Offensiveness Police: Therese D. Breton

Digital photo scans: Armstrong Imaging Center

Flyleaf Map: Trudi Marsh

Illustrations: Erika F. G. Birk

Photographs: The Orchid Digest, Jack A. Fowlie M.D. (deceased), Rene Klinge, Mendel University of Agriculture and Forestry, Libor Jankovsky, Jerry Fischer, Gary C. Gallup, Trudi Marsh, and the author.

Printed in China

ISBN 9612826-1-4

THE

PAPHIOPEDILUM

GROWER’S MANUAL

Second Edition

Revised

Lance A. Birk

Published by

Pisang Press

Santa Barbara, California USA

October 26, 2004

Printed in China

Dedication

I wish to dedicate this second edition to Gary C. Gallup, without whose efforts and encouragement this book would not have been possible. Over the many years of our friendship he has generously offered and has frequently provided his support and advice, not just to me, but to his many friends and family members. I would like to recognize Gary for his honorable character and for the successful endeavors he has undertaken, as well as for the generosity of his friendship.

I would also like to dedicate this book to Ernest H. Hetherington. I have never met anyone who carried such an enduring love for plants (mostly orchids), or one who was so generous with his time and energy to so many other people. I doubt that any other person has done as much in the interest of orchids, or for as long.

Acknowledgements

I wish to acknowledge the following people, who at one time or another have been influential in this book. Rebecca Northen set the pattern for quality orchid books. Her “Home Orchid Growing” editions are the most complete and factual of all orchid books. I wish to thank her for showing the rest of us how it should be done. Jack A. Fowlie, M.D., as editor of the Orchid Digest, has established and continued a series of excellent articles about collecting, identifying, and culturing orchids of countless different kinds. He also helped me to get started collecting orchids in the wild, which has been the very basis for information needed to write this book. He is a good friend and generous with his botanical and editorial expertise. Ray Rands’ drive to discover new paphiopedilums continually kept my interest high, and he alone had a tremendous impact upon the orchid growing public, myself included.

Dr. Pisit Voraurai guided Dr. Fowlie and me through two separate trips to Thailand, and without his help we would have had little success. Gary Gallup is a long-time friend and traveling companion whose interests in visiting orchid habitats matched my own, and whose father gave me my first orchid. Gary is the first one who encouraged me to write down things which I had learned. Dennis Runyen is another longtime friend whose questions and advice always were provocative. Larry Heuer showed me the importance of visiting other people and their collections in order to gain knowledge not available by any other means. Rex Janz van Delden offered not only sound scientific principles, but also an insight into the ways of life of the peoples of Southeast Asia. James H. Asher, Jr., Ph.D., gave advice and collaboration, which were invaluable in my determining some of the finer points of botany, particularly in the identification of several species. Ann Y. Wilkinson, Ph.D., gave me the ability to put my words into logical and readable perspectives and her advice was always constructive and informative.

Others who have been influential include: Earl Ross, who maintains the research collection at the Los Angeles Arboretum in such a superb manner; Ernest Hetherington, whose wealth of information and friendly advice are always meaningful; Paul Bechtel, who offered advice and photographs; JoAnn Brown, who offered help, photographs and good advice, and who gave me details of how certain species grew and hybridized. I also wish to thank Norito Hasegawa, D.D.S., and Harold Koopowitz, Ph.D., who both showed me photographs, plants, and literature concerning some of the latest developments in paphiopedilums. Paul Gripp was one of my first orchid-growing teachers. Emerson “Doc” Charles and his late wife Ruby, were both full of good orchid-growing advice. Chan Chew Lun, as my friend and guide in Sabah, offered freely of his time and help, for which I am most grateful. Special thanks are due Trudi Marsh for doing such a beautiful job with the design of both front and back covers, as well as the map on the inside flyleaf. I also would like to honor the memory of the late George C. Kennedy, Ph.D., Harry Stage, and Martin Orenstein, M.D.

ISBN 9612826-1-4

CONTENTS

dedication .............................................................................V

acknowledgements ........................................................V

preface to the first edition ....................................VIII

glossary ................................................................................X

leaf shapes .........................................................................XII

introduction ......................................................................13

preface to the second edition ..................................14

time for change ................................................................24

part I - species in cultivation

Subgenus Parvisepalum ...........................................……............28

Subgenus Brachypetalum .......................................…….............39

Subgenus Paphiopedilum

Section Coryopetalum ...........................................………….......47

Section Pardalopetalum .......................................………….........65

Section Cochlopetalum .........................................…………........72

Section Paphiopedilum .........................................…………........79

Section Barbata ......................................................………….......98

ALPHABETICAL INDEX TO THE SPECIES ...........…..........138

PART II - BASICS OF CULTIVATION

Chapter 1 -Plant Diseases, Insects and Pests .................……....141

Chapter 2 -When and How to Water Your Plants ..........……....155

Chapter 3 - Air and Light ..............................................…….....163

Chapter 4 -Dividing and Repotting .................................……...169

Chapter 5 -Potting Media ...........................................…….......177

Chapter 6 -Seedling Care - From the Flask ..............…….........187

Chapter 7 -Orchids in the Home .............................……..........193

Chapter 8 -Housing Your Plants Outdoors .............……..........199

PART III - RELATED INTERESTS

Chapter 9 -Making a Cross ..........................................……....209

Chapter 10 -Seed Sowing and Replating .................….……......217

Chapter 11 -Orchid Societies and Their Benefits .....…..…........227

Chapter 12 -Photographing Your Orchids ............…….............231

Chapter 13 -Importing Paphiopedilum Orchids .......……..........239

Chapter 14 -Orchid Collecting in Habitat ..............……….........245

Chapter 15 -The Disappearing Forests ....................……..........261

Chapter 16 -Matter Over Mind ....................................…….......271

LIST OF PRE-PUBLICATION SUBSCRIBERS ....................283

PREFACE

FIRST EDITION

I remember it vividly. I was on an airplane I shouldn’t have been on, going to Korea, where I didn’t want to go, thinking, “What in the world am I doing here?” I had started my return home after a month and a half of collecting plants and reconnoitering prospective collecting locations in Southeast Asia, on a trip my travel agent still talks about for the record he holds for booking my forty-eight-leg journey through his office. I was thinking about the safety of my own home, and of a hot shower and comfortable bed, not to mention the costs of such a journey. Three hours earlier we had crash-landed in Malaysia due to a leak in the airplane’s hydraulic system and I was still pretty shaken up. It was then that I pulled my small note pad from my shirt pocket and jotted down the questions I had had which sent me on this series of adventures in the first place. I knew there were a great many other people who were impatiently waiting for these same answers; only I was foolish enough to actually go out and seek them for myself. That was in 1978.

That small note pad held the ideas I followed during the time which I spent writing this book. In the fall of 1978 1 started writing the text and within three months I had it almost completed. It wasn’t good. I didn’t like it. During the next two years I made attempts to correct what I had written, but it still didn’t work. Realizing that I needed help, I asked a friend who teaches English literature for her advice. The results of what I learned from her caused me to discard all of what I had previously written and I began over from the start. This second attempt has taken me more than a year of constant labor, which I have done each night when I got home from my regular job at my restaurant. It has been slow. My family has almost forgotten who I am, but it was something I needed to do. I am not really a writer; I am an instructor. This book is not a labor of love; rather it is an effort to disseminate the knowledge I have gained through many experiences, few of which are afforded other persons.

Why the dedication? I find the quest for knowledge the most significant thing anyone can do, for without knowledge, man’s brain cannot be fully utilized. It is within our power to accomplish anything we wish to accomplish, whether it is flying to the moon or providing the best environment for our orchids. But without the collection of many bits of information, true values cannot be placed in the process of making a decision, and when that decision concerns the health of our plants, or the knowledge of their correct identities, it has a great deal of importance. The purpose of this book therefore, is to offer this information to as many people as is possible who can, and will use it.

I first met Ray Rands in the fall of 1967 while I was making my first big purchase of a Paphiopedilum. It was a piece of Paphiopedilum rothschildianum and when Rands saw it he wanted to know all about it. He had recently been to a local orchid nursery and seen dozens of large, round, hybrid Paphiopedilum orchids. He didn’t like them. Later, he visited an orchid show at the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum and saw a blooming plant of Paphiopedilum fairrieanum. He fell in love. When told it was a Paphiopedilum he exclaimed, “That can’t be a Paph, they’re big and ugly. This is beautiful!” It opened a whole new world to him with the ensuing results of his bringing his own excitement to the waiting orchid-growing public.

Rands’ quest for information about different kinds of Paphiopedilums drove him to seek every different species he was able to locate. Being creative and intelligent, he aggressively sought every source. While there are those who would accuse Rands of “looting the forests,” I know from firsthand experience, that were it not for his interest, there might be several species lost to the slash and burn practice of native farming, species which may never have been known to science. There is no question about it; the jungles are disappearing. Rands has sought cultural perfection in order to maintain or to improve the health of his plants, not only for the benefit of his own plants, but for those of his customers as well. This book is intended to carry that idea further, and has benefited from many of Rands’ experiences.

My friends and I could hardly wait to see what new plants Rands had received during the interim of our last visit. We always bought a few from each of his shipments and found it almost impossible to find current information about this genus of plants. It seems they didn’t exist for 75 years. While there had been much written in the past, there was nothing recent which would help us identify our plants. Certainly, there was nothing pertinent on how to grow them. It was a time of great frustration. Trying to guess which species was which, based upon its habitat location was equally frustrating, because all of the old-time orchid collectors had lied about where they found their plants in order to protect their sources. Dr. Jack A. Fowlie said it correctly, “The only way to know for certain where a plant comes from is to go to the habitat yourself and collect a plant. When it flowers, you can then try to identify it.”

Dr. Fowlie’s publication of “An Annotated Checklist of the Species Paphlopedilum,” in Cymbidium Society News for 1965, and his revised checklist, published in The Orchid Digest in 1966, set the stage for the revival of the popularity of Paphiopedilum orchids. Up until that time, anyone who grew more than one was considered as being slightly eccentric. Fowlie’s listing of paphiopedilums was the first work done in English on that genus in over 60 years. While it included errors, it brought forth a whole new source of information for orchid growers, a great number of whom were then looking for new directions for their collections. What followed was an awakening to the genus Paphiopedilum. Due to the large response to his checklist, Fowlie was encouraged to update and to correct errors and untruths in literature regarding Paphiopedilum orchids, a process he still continues as editor of The Orchid Digest.

Together they worked, Fowlie and Rands. Rands would import a plant, coax it into bloom, and Fowlie would rush over and cut off the flower to preserve it in spirit. Particularly important plants would be “liberated” from Rands’ collection and placed in the research collection at the Los Angeles State and County Arboretum, where Fowlie could study them more closely. For several years this continued, but it took too long. I was impatient. I wanted to learn more, sooner. I went with Dr. Fowlie on a few trips to Southeast Asia to visit the habitats of several species of paphiopedilums. Then I went on several trips on my own. It was faster, but still too slow. I wondered if enough information could ever be gathered.

About that time I found myself in a broken airplane, on an airfield in Malaysia, with the realization that I might never have all the information I wanted. I knew I had to compromise. I had to establish a cutoff point, and then contribute what I could to relieve for others, the same frustrations I had experienced in the beginning of this interest. It was then that I made the decision to write a cultural book which would contain information learned from visiting the habitats of Paphiopedilum species, to help others who were struggling to keep their plants in good health. I also wanted to provide accurate information which would help others to properly identify the plants they were growing. I am not a trained botanist; I even flunked botany in college, so I am not prepared to attempt a taxonomic monograph on this genus. However, I have obtained a great source of information about this genus, which I have presented within these pages. I am very interested in cultural matters; a field in which I do rather well, and since no one I knew of was interested in providing this information, I felt the task was left to me.

While I cannot answer all questions everyone might have, I have provided sound, basic cultural advice for those problems most frequently encountered. I have tried to anticipate problems, and by offering advice on how to provide a healthful environment, to ensure that they do not occur. With this basic background, anyone who reads this book will be able to successfully grow his Paphiopedilum orchids. For those questions he might have which are not covered herein, I hope this book will provide the impetus for each person to go forth and seek those answers himself. This book is not an end product; rather it is an interim solution to a continuing quest for knowledge.

Lance A. Birk

October 26, 1983

GLOSSARY

ACUMINATE - Tapering to a point.

ACUTE - Sharply pointed, but not drawn out.

AFFINITY - A plant, or part closely related to another, or much resembling it in structure.

ANTHER - The pollen-bearing part of the stamen.

APEX - The tip of an organ (as a leaf).

APICAL - At the apex, or top.

APPRESSED - Closely and flatly pressed against; adpressed.

AXIL - Upper angle that a petiole or peduncle makes with the stem that bears it.

BASE - The bottom or lower end of a part or structure of an organ, even though this part may be upper-most as the organ hangs on the plant.

BIFID -- Two-cleft, or two-cut.

BIFURCATE - Forked.

BLADE - The expanded part of leaf or petal.

BRACHYS - In Greek compounds, signifying short, as brachypodus, on a short foot or stalk.

BRACT - A much-reduced leaf, particularly the scale, or scale-like leaves in a flower-cluster, or associated with flowers.

CALCEOLATE - Sljpper-like; having the form of a round-toed shoe.

CAPSULE - Compound pod; a dry fruit of more than one carpel, opening at maturity.

CHANNELED - Deeply grooved lengthwise; canaliculate.

CHROMOSOMES - Microscopic rod-like bodies in the plant cell, bearing the hereditary material.

CILIATE - Fringed with hairs; bearing hairs on the margin.

CILIOLATE - Slightly or minutely ciliate.

CLEISTOGAMOUS FLOWERS - Small, closed, self-fertilized flowers.

COLUMN - Combined stamens and style into one body (as in orchids).

CONCAVE - Hollowed out.

CONVEX - Umbrella-like.

CORDATE - Heart-shaped; with a sinus and rounded lobes at the base, and ovate in general outline.

CRENATE - With teeth rounded, scalloped.

CROSS - The offspring of any two flowers that have been fertilized. Cross-pollination is the transfer of the pollen of one flower to the pistil of another.

CULTIVAR – A special form originating in cultivation.

CUSPIDATE - Tipped with a sharp and stiff point.

DECIDUOUS - Falling, as the leaves of non-evergreen trees.

DEFLEXED - Turned downward abruptly.

DEHISCENCE - The method of process of opening, of a seedpod or anther.

DENTATE - With sharp, spreading teeth.

DETRITUS - A mass of fragments.

DIPLOID - Having the basic chromosome number as twice the number in normal germ-cells characteristic of a species.

DIVISION - Propagation by means of separating the root system or rhizome system into parts.

DORSAL - Back; in orchids usually a top sepal.

ELLIPTIC - A flat part of body that is oval and narrowed to rounded ends.

ELONGATE - Lengthened; stretched out.

EMARGINATE - Notched at the end.

ENDEMIC - Native to a restricted region.

ENSIFORM, ENSATE - Sword-shaped; long, flat, 2-edged, nearly or quite straight, with a sharp point.

ENTIRE - Margin not in any way indented; whole.

ENVIRONMENT – Surroundings; conditions in which organisms live and grow.

EPIPHYTE - Air-plant; a plant growing on another, but not taking food from its host.

FERTILIZATION - Impregnation of the ovule; the act of union of sperm and egg cells, in the higher plants taking place within the ovule; fecundation.

GERMINATION - The unfolding of the embryo and becoming self-established of the plantlet.

GLABROUS - Not hairy, smooth.

GLANDULOSE, GLANDULIFEROUS - Gland-bearing.

GLAUCOUS - Covered with a “bloom” or a whitish substance that rubs off.

HABITAT - Particular place in which a plant grows- as a swamp, roadside, lawn, woods, ballast-heap, hillside.

HAIRY - Having longer hairs.

HAPLOID - Having the basic chromosome number, or half the diploid number characteristic of a species.

HERB - Naturally dying to the ground; without persistent stem above ground; lacking definite woody firm structure.

HIRSUTE - With rather rough, or coarse hairs.

HYBRID - A plant resulting from a cross between two or more parents that are more or less unlike.

INDIGENOUS - Native to the region; not introduced from some other country.

INFLORESCENCE - Mode of flower-bearing; technically less correct but much more common in the sense of a flower cluster.

INTERGENERIC - Hybrid between genera.

KEELED – Ridged, like the bottom of a boat.

LABELLUM - Lip, particularly the lip of orchids.

LACINIATE - Slashed into narrow pointed lobes.

LANCEOLATE - Lance-shaped; much longer than broad; widening above the base and tapering to the apex.

LATERAL - On or at the side.

LINEAR - Long and narrow, the sides parallel or nearly so.

LIP - One of the parts in an unequally divided corolla or calyx; the upper lip of orchids is by a twist of the stipe made to appear as the lower; a labium.

MARGINAL - At the edge.

MIDRIB - The main rib of a leaf or leaf-like part.

MONOPODIAL - Axial direction continued by growth from terminal bud or persistence of the leader.

MORPHOLOGY - The science or subject that treats of forms or of the transformation of organs.

MOTTLED - Patterned with different shades or colors.

MYCELIUM - Vegetative part of a fungus, composed of threads or thready tissue.

NERVE - A vein or slender rib, particularly if not branched.

OB. - A Latin syllable, usually signifying inversion.

OBCORDATE - Inversely heart shaped, with notch being at the apex.

OBLONG - Longer than broad, and with the sides nearly or quite parallel most of their length.

OBOVATE - Inverted ovate, the broad end upward.

OBTUSE - Blunt, rounded at the end.

OVARY - Ovule-bearing part of a pistil.

OVATE - With an outline like that of a hen’s egg cut in two lengthwise, the broader end downward.

OVULE - The body which, after fertilization, becomes the seed.

PARALLEL - Equally distant at every part.

PATHOLOGICAL - Diseased.

PEDUNCLE - Stem of a flower cluster or of a solitary flower.

PETAL - A flower leaf.

PHENOTYPE - Of similar physical makeup as the type species, influenced by environment.

PHYTOLOGY - The study of plants, particularly of the kinds of species; botany.

PILOSE - Shaggy with soft hairs.

PLAITED - Folded lengthwise, as a closed fan.

POD - A dehiscent dry pericarp.

POLLEN - Spores or grains borne by the anther, containing the male element; sometimes it is not granular.

POLLINATION - The mechanical or physical operation of transferring pollen from stamen to pistil.

POLLINIUM- A coherent mass of pollen, as in orchids.

PUBESCENT - Covered with short, soft hairs; dwvriv.

RACEME - A simple elongated indeterminate cluster with stalked flowers.

RECURVED - Bent or curved downward or backward.

REFLEXED - Abruptly recurved or bent down

ward or backward.

RHIZOME - Underground stem; rootstock.

RUNNER - A slender trailing shoot taking root at the nodes.

SCABROUS - Rough; feeling roughish or gritty to the touch.

SCAPE - Leafless peduncle arising from the ground; it may bear scales or bracts but no foliage leaves, and may be one- or many-flowered.

SEPAL - Each segment of a calyx or outer floral envelopes.

SERRATE - Notched like saw; finely toothed.

SPATULATE - Oblong, broadly rounded at tip but tapering to narrow base.

SPIKE - Elongated flower stem, with flowers not stalked.

STAMEN - The pollen-bearing or “male” organ.

STAMINODE, STAMINODIUM - A sterile stamen or a structure resembling such and borne in the staminal part of the flower.

STEM - The main axis of a plant; leaf-bearing and flower-bearing, as distinguished from the root-bearing axis.

STIGMA - The part of the pistil that receives the pollen.

STOLON - A shoot that bends to the ground and takes root; more commonly, a horizontal stem at or below surface of the ground that gives rise to a new plant at its tip.

STOMATA - Mouth transpiratory opening in leaf surface.

SUB. - As a prefix, usually signifying somewhat, slightly or rather.

SUB-CORDATE - Indented a trifle.

SUCCULENT - juicy; fleshy; soft and thickened in texture.

SULCATE - Grooved or furrowed lengthwise.

SYNONYM - A name rejected in favor of another.

TAXONOMY - Classification of species.

TERRESTRIAL - Plants growing in the ground.

TESSELLATE - Mosaic pattern.

TETRAPLOID - Having four sets of chromosomes.

TOMENTOSE - With tomentum; densely wooly or pubescent; with matted, soft wool-like hairiness.

TRIPLOID - Having three times the haploid chromosome number.

TURGID - Swollen, bloated, inflated.

UNDULATE - Wavy, or wavy-margined.

VEINED - Lines not connected.

VIABLE - Capable of germinating or living.

VILLOUS - Provided with long and soft, not matted, hairs; shaggy.

WEBBED - Connected lines, like a net.

XEROPHYTIC - Growing in dry situations, subsisting with little moisture.