Chysis bractescens
Week 1: March 25, 2020
Chysis bractescens
Hello everyone.
I would like to offer plant for discussion - Chysis bractescens.
Because this is not official judging I would like to give some information.
I saw this plant at the day of judging March 14. It’s belong to Joan and David Rosenfeld and he brought it to show this plant to us (actually, he prepared 5 plants! Sorry David). I did few photos myself and measured flowers.
At the day of judging plant exhibited 35 flowers in perfect condition fine arranged on six inflorescences. Flower size - about 9 cm NS. Flowers was off white color, little yellow hue, lip and center yellow. I don’t remember any pink hue.
This species is native to Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.
In OrchidPro we have 27 awards on this species (including one var. aurea dated 1981). That’s mean, AOS don’t wanna separate var. aurea from all awards. Number of CCM awards you can find there.
Two recent awards are ‘Bodacious’ AM 86 pts 2017 (24 flowers, 1 bud on 4 infl., 9.5 cm NS) and ‘Memoria Jim Duffin’ AM 82 2016 (MidAtlantic, 6 flowers, 0 buds, 1 infl. 9.0 cm NS).
Please view photos of the plant, flowers and photo of David holding this plant.
I spoke with David, he will be glad to know your opinions 😄
Is this plant could get award (if presented at official judging) or screened out?
Thanks
Sergey
Judges' Comments
Cathy Higgins
Love the photos. For me, it's a candidate for a cultural award. Noticed a few imperfections on leaves, nothing major. Certainly well flowered. I don't remember the Jim Duffin award...Paul might. C.
Ed Weber
The Jim Duffin award was that one from the flower show that we unpaid, then they both passed away and I asked Laura Newton to approve the award unpaid and named it for Jim. That's probably why you don't remember it.
As for this plant, I agree that it would likely be a cultural award candidate. The flower itself is fairly average but a flowering like this is pretty unusual. In fact in checking Orchid Pro no other CCM has this many flowers. I'd definitely be on-board with a CCM or better.
Mark Werther
My comment on the Chysis is as follows. I would have no trouble giving the plant an 86 or 87 CCM. The damaged leaves should be trimmed or removed as it is difficult to keep these plants totally clean. As far as a flower award, I would have to see the individual inflorescences.