Hello all, I was recently reading through Braem's monograph of paphs and stumbled across the following description:
"Answering a recent enquiry, a representative of the Royal Horticultural Society stated that P. wenshanense is to be applied to the F1 population (bellatulum x concolor) and that P. Conco-bellatulum is the correct designation for all other generations. In that sense P. wenshanense x P. wenshanense would yield P. Conco-bellatulum. This will cause more confusion. Besides, plants of P. Conco-bellatulum have been awarded as exceptionally good clones of P. concolor. The thus awarded hybrid will nearly certainly be used as a parent for hybridisation. This in turn means that the progeny will be misidentified, and of course the following generations of hybrids as well."
Braem, G., Chiron, G. Paphiopedilum. Tropicalia: France 2003. p.22.

I know there was some debate over the difference in a thread a while back, so I hope this either clears things up, or enflames a new debate as I have currently not been able to draw a coherent conclusion on the topic...

--Stephen

My understanding is that Paph wenshanense is what use to be mistakenly considered a natural hybrid between concolor x bellatulum (P. Conco-bellatulum). Here is how John Robertson (from Robertson Orchids in Australia) explained it to me -

"Originally all of the collected plants were thought to be natural hybrids of concolor and bellatulum and were a yellow colour with chocolate spotting. However when the cross of concolor and bellatulum was made artificially, the progeny did not resemble the collected plants that were assumed to be concolor x bellatulum.(Cream to white flowers, and fine spotting). These results prompted (breeders first and taxonomists second !) questions about the genetic origins of the collected plants. Breeders had noticed that the collected plants when used as a parent yielded very different results to crosses done with what we now are calling Conco-bellatulum. Finally the taxonomists decided that the collected plants were a species and wenshanense was decided on."

David

David, thanks for the input, I now have even more conflicting info...which I kinda like because I get to sound informed... :D

--Stephen