Candidate for this month is a Cattleya Summerland Girl 'Orchidglade' (Cattleya tigrina x Cattleya Grandee (1937)). 

Cattleya Summerland Girl was originated by Bracey and registered by Jones & Scully in 1967. Cattleya Grandee (1937) is the cross between Cattleya Mrs. Medo and Cattleya Aeneas. This cross has four Cattleya species in the background - C. tigrina - 50%, C. dowiana - 38%, C. tenebrosa - 6% and C. bicolor - 6%.

Previous Awards:

There is only one AOS award for this cross in 1965 for cultivar 'Mid-Florida', AM/AOS 84 pts. Not much information about this award available in OrchidPro!

However, just recently, in August 6, 2025, cultivar 'Orchidglade' received AM/AOS 80 pts in Hawaii Judging Center.

Recently awarded plant had 9 flowers on one erect 25-cm inflorescence, flower size is 10.5 by 11.0. Award photo attached bellow.

Description:

The candidate plant has 28 flowers on one 40.6-cm inflorescence. Total height from top of the mix to tip of the inflorescence is 104-cm. Plant is growing in 30-cm plastic pot. 

I believe that candidate plant is original division of Cattleya Summerland Girl 'Orchidglade'!

Flower Measurements:

NS H - 12.3 cm;                   NS V - 10.7 cm;

Dorsal Sep. W - 2.2 cm;    Dorsal Sep. L - 7.9 cm;

Petal W - 3.6 cm;               Petals L - 6.6 cm;

Lat/Sepal W - 2.3 cm;       Lat/Sepal L - 5.8 cm;

Lip/Pouch W - 3.6 cm;     Lip/Pouch L - 5.6 cm.

Judges' Comments

Jan Takamiya (Accredited Judge, Hawaii Judging Center)

Thank you to Virtual Orchids for the opportunity to see & learn from this hybrid/cultivar. From the SFOS Silver award of 3 flowers to the recent AM AOS of 9 and now a 28-count spike, the flower count tripled each time! Incredible. Kurtis Iwata tells us the timing of his bloom never coincided with judging. It amazes me that growers knew the potential for this tigrina hybrid since the 60s and even more amazing, kept it alive all these years. If it weren’t for VO, this shy plant would miss the judging table again, & we probably wouldn’t see this impressive bloom. I would definitely nominate this candidate to elevate the current AOS award to a high AM.  Congratulations to the patient & passionate grower for not only keeping this plant alive all these years, but for maximizing it’s potential & also for the awesome bud distribution shot that shows the branching inflorescence, which surprisingly did not distract from the overall presentation.  I wonder if Bracey knew the potential of this hybrid & does anyone know if the other cultivars are this improved?

Judie Armstrong (Associate Judge, Florida North-Central Judging Center)

This is a very well grown and flowered plant.  The color is rich and saturated on the sepals and petals.  The white side lobes set off the contrast with the bright lip.  I find the flowers to be cupped probably due to the high flower count.  The petals look smaller than the previous award in 1965, though it could be the angle of the picture and we do not have measurements from 1965 to compare.  I am not comparing to the recently awarded flower since it is not in OrchidPro as I write this.   I would not award this flower for quality at this time.  I think the cupping would take points away and the petals would lose points.  However, I would recommend a culture award.  The plant has a high flower count on the inflorescence and is well grown.  I see a blackened spot on one leaf.  I could award this a low CCM.  Thank you to the grower for submitting this beautiful plant and flowers.

Kris Mason (Accredited Judge, Cincinnati Judging Center)

Thank you for sharing this lovely plant.  This clone currently has an 80 point AM.  While it has more flowers and overall larger size, I don't like the stance on the petals as well as the AM.  I would still be in the low AM for quality and therefore would pass for an elevation for quality.  While the inflorescence is robust, starting to branch and very well flowered, as a whole, I don't think it quite comes up to a cultural award with this presentation.

Paul Wetter (Senior Judge, West Palm Beach Judging Center)

I love classic Cattleyas and this is a stunning example of the cross between C. tigrina and C. Grandee. This is a very well grown plant with a beautifully spaced arrangement of flowers. As a young man I used to wander through the display greenhouse at Jones and Scully in Miami and was always amazed by the displays.  The color of these flowers is as to be expected, with the very nice exception of here the anther cap is a wonderfully contrasting white, which I think is an improvement from previous awards, so would be nice to know if this is indeed from the original 1965 plant or a newer cross. Because of the very good form and growth and color I would expect this to receive at least a Mid  AM 85-86 and perhaps a Cultural Award. 

Always interested in what the other participants think. There could be some very good insights here.

Best

Paul Wetter

Joe Bryson (Accredited Judge, Florida North-Central Judging Center)

Sergey, I think this is an exceptionally nice C. Summerland Girl. Much larger and more floriferous than previous. Looking at the bud distribution and inflorescence/flowers, I think it is not too crowded for this grex (although the flowers towards the apex of the infl. shows the lateral sepals may be somewhat crowded more so than the lower flowers. The flower form and color is impressive. I would be willing to give this a mid-high AM and a cultural award as well.

Joe

Ed Cott (Accredited Judge, Great Lakes Judging Center)

Extremely well flowered although the flowers are a bit crowded and not as symmetrically arranged as could be. Substance appears very good and color is consistent with the most recently awarded cultivar. I think we would be remiss if we did not nominate it for a quality award.

Jay Balchan (Student Judge, Alamo Judging Center)

The flower head on this plant is absolutely stunning…. So many flowers in a wonderful arrangement.  Fred Clarke spoke at the Houston Orchid Society workshop last weekend and he said that floral arrangements with a lot of flowers should have the flowers arranged in multiple “helixes”.  This plant has that in excess. The flowers are close enough to have this helix arrangement but with space enough so that they have opened well. 

From a judging point of view, it is hard to pick out an individual flower to judge, but I’m sure there is a well balanced, nicely open flower if there are 28 to choose from!  The color is nice and clean and very eye catching.  Both shape and color compare very favorably to the existing recent award.  The overall size of the flower is slightly larger with the individual segments being right in line.  The number of flowers and arrangement is far superior to the prior award.  

This plant would score very highly on my scorecard… keeping color and shape on par with the prior award, adding one point for size and adding several points for number of flowers and arrangement would give this a mid AM at least.  If I saw it in person to see the scale of the plant and the head of flowers in person and see the color in the sunlight, it could be a high AM on my card.

Deb Jenson (Student Judge, Chicago Judging Center)

This certainly is a beautiful specimen, and I’m sure the grower was excited to see such a large, floriferous blooming.

When comparing this to the recently awarded ‘Orchidglade’, I see some advantages and some disadvantages. It’s more floriferous with 28 flowers compared to 9, with a taller inflorescence, no doubt to carry the larger number of flowers. With this large number of flowers comes some crowding, but it does carry a nice arrangement for the most part.

The natural spread width is larger than the awarded at 12.3 vs. 10.5. I would like to see fuller (wider) and flatter petals; the right petal also has some undulation on the upper margin, inconsistent with the left. The dorsal sepal also has a bit of recurving on the tip. The lateral sepals are proportionate and present well. The lip is nice and proportionate.

I like the color and contrast with the overall dark burgundy offset by the light pink and fushia lip. Seeing this live would give a true sense of the color, but it certainly looks nice from the photo.

I would nominate this for a CCM award, scoring in the low to mid-80s. In terms of a quality award, I would pass.

Deb Jenson

Al Messina (Accredited Judge, Northeast Judging Center)

This quite interesting candidate presents nicely, is beautifully grown, and, while individual flowers are, at best, HCC worthy, the amazing flower count should raise it to at least low AM level. Most of the flowers are significantly cupped (just opening?) but very nicely arranged circumferentially, have deeply colored segments albeit overall smaller than awarded clones.

Exhibitor should be proud of growing this plant and producing such a wonderful result.

Steve González-Costa (Accredited Judge, Chicago Judging Center)

Very impressive flower count vs. the award with 9 flowers.  Beautiful color.  A Jones & Scully classic from 1967.  After looking at the comparison points and the fact that the right petals twists and had very large notches on it, flowers are somewhat inconsistent, I really do not see it getting much higher than the AM it already is recognized for (very well deserved) even if some segments are slightly wider.  I might have scored it a point or two higher the way it is today, it did have less flowers for the award, but and AM of 80 is in the right ballpark.  What is wild about this is that bifurcating bud photo for the top 9 or so buds – wow!  If it had one or two other inflorescences, would be a nice cultural award.  I’ll pass for now, let see what the remainder of the team says.

Tom Mirenda (Accredited Judge, Hawaii Judging Center)

A rather stunning bifoliate with excellent flower count and a very nice arrangement, pleasing and saturated coloration.

We have seen more than a few progeny in this line of breeding here in Hawaii with C. tigrina and C. bicolor in the background. They can be, as in this case, quite spectacular...though the plants can sometimes be a bit ungainly, i.e. very tall with terminal flowers clusters, that may not be proportional to the plants.

This particular clone the proportionality is not an issue....with this excellent flower count, the inflorescence is very full and makes a perfect 'picture'

In addition, the flowers are larger than the recent award and as previously said, of a pleasing coloration.

I particularly like the contrast of the pale sidelobes forming the tubular lip giving additional interest to what would have been just a dark flower.

Due to the size, number, form arrangement and coloration of the flowers, I would certainly vote to score this plant.

I would think it worthy of a mid-AM range....perhaps 84 or 85 points.  

Daria Souvorova (Student Judge, Houston Judging Center)

It is really cool to see Cattleya Summerland Girl presented here, I have seen the results of quite a bit of hybridizing with it of late, but have not seen the parent itself, so thank you for sharing it and explaining its history to the group. It's kind of surprising that it has not popped up in judging since the 1960's as it has been used in hybridizing consistently since that time. 

In reading your introduction while looking at the plant in front of us, I was somewhat surprised to see the 38% dowiana in its parentage, I think our 'Orchidglade' cultivar has veered significantly more in the heritage of its tigrina parentage, I can see that dowiana parentage a bit more in the wider petals and frillier lip of the 'Mid-Florida' cultivar awarded before 1965. That being said, I am really enjoying the nods to tigrina we are seeing in the 'Orchidglade' cultivar and I am glad to see it was awarded recently.

Since we are looking at presumably a division of 'Orchidglade', our task is not so much to determine if this plant is awardable, as it has already been awarded, but to determine if the piece in front of us warrants an elevation in score. In both cases, we are seeing a very beautiful contrast between burgundy, lavender, and fuschia between the sepals/petals, side lobes and midlobe of the lip. I would be happy to score pretty highly on color. The form is a bit more open than the 'Mid-Florida' cultivar, so I can see how it may have lost some points there in both cases, but it is a rather good presentation of what we would expect from a bifoliate cattleya. From the photographs provided, the lip on the plant presented to us for consideration has less asymmetry in the lip than the awarded 'Orchidglade' plant. Some of the petals in the awarded plant have notching, but our cultivar does not seem to have suffered from any misadventures while opening its 28 flowers, and all of the ones I can see have nicely formed petals. 

Our flowers are a bit larger than the previously awarded plant as well, which seems quite impressive considering our plant is holding 28 flowers on one inflorescence compared to the previously awarded nine. I also find the branching of the inflorescence very interesting, I have yet to see this growth habit on any similar plant. Having a brief look at the expected flower count per inflorescence in the species making up Summerland Girl (based on 20 recent OrchidPro awards, typo variety used for each calculation); C. tigrina (about 15, 20.4fl/1.4 inflorescences), C. dowiana (about 3, 4/1.3 inflos), C. tenebrosa (around 3, 7.4fl +.6 bud/2.5 inflo), and C. bicolor (around 8, 11.8/1.5infl). With these stats, our 'Orchidglade' has outpaced even its most floriferous parent, even with almost 50% of its heritage being that of a labiate type cattleya. Even given hybrid vigor, I find our giant inflorescence very impressive.

Perhaps with all of these magnificent flowers, a few of the petals are a bit crowded, but I am not always a fan of disparaging a plant for being a smidge crowded when we are presented with such a distinguished flower count, especially on the general scale :) :). Especially if we keep telling growers to bring their plants back with more flowers, we can't quite reprimand them for fulfilling our request. 

All that being said, I can be easily cajoled into giving this plant a 90, but we are very cautious with FCCs in our center, so being a student, and knowing my predisposition to enjoying big sexy tigrina hybrids, I would be content with elevating this plant to a higher AM if that was all that the judges around me could tolerate. 

Cheers,

Daria 

Gabriel Bach (Accredited Judge in AJOCORI, orchid society in Costa Rica)

Gorgeous tall inflorescence with well distributed flowers and a very interesting bifurcation at the tip that helps to broaden the bouquet. Big flowers even with the high flower count, slightly cupped, lips' side lobes are bent upwards. Waxy texture. With given measurements my commendation would be for an 82 pts AM award.

Beth Davis (Accredited Judge, Mid-Atlantic Judging Center, Waldor Orchids)

Cattleya Summerland Girl `Orchidglade'

This plant is impressive, well-grown, and I am sure would have a presence on a judging table in person. The photo of the buds was a nice addition to the album, showing us the distribution on the inflorescence before they opened. The crisp white color of the sidelobes on the lip pops off the waxy burgundy segments. 

Here is a little rabbit hole...

I was interested in the award history and breeding of these big bifoliate Cattleyas. 

Several came to mind. 

C. Summerland Girl (tigrina x Grandee) reg. 1967 3 awards from 1965 to 2025

C. Mrs. Mahler, a primary hybrid (bicolor x guttata) reg. 1901  13 awards from 1965 to 2025

C. Maui Plum (Summerland Girl x guttata) reg. 1983  4 awards from 1989 to 2021

C. Allen Condo (Summerland Girl x Mrs. Mahler) reg. 1998 17 awards from 2002 to 2024

C. Raspberry Smoke (Allen Condo x Maui Plum) reg. 2015 12 awards from 2015 to 2025

Looking at this data, I find a few things interesting.

1. Without Summerland Girl, we wouldn't have Maui Plam, Allen Condo, or Raspberry Smoke. These 3 hybrids have shown us some outstanding flowers. AND Summerland Girl is the only hybrid in this list that was bred using unifoliate cattleyas, which contributes to larger flower size. 

2. These 5 samples, registered from 1901 to 2015, are still getting awards. 

3. The candidate has 28 flowers on one inflorescence. From a quick look at the other 4 samples, none of the awards come close to having that many flowers on one inflorescence. 

Beth Davis

Waldor Orchids

Alejandro Capriles Accredited Judge, Società Felsinea di Orchidofilia (Felsinean Orchid Society), Bologna, Italy / AOS Judge (retired)

Here are my comments on the current candidate:

It’s mind-boggling to realize that this grex was never shown for judging in 60 years since its previous award. I spoke with Kurtis Iwata, the exhibitor whose plant was recently awarded, asking him how was this possible, and his answer was that unfortunately this grex blooms during the hottest period in Summer and the flowers just don’t last long enough to coincide with a judging session. Even other growers like Fred Clarke have had the same problem. It’s wonderful, though, when everything fits into place and results in such a well-deserved award. Bravo Kurtis!

This flowering of the same cultivar is remarkable in the number of flowers, but the individual measurements are comparable - there are some segments that are larger and some that are smaller. However, 28 flowers on one inflorescence is outstanding. All things considered, I would probably score it an AM of 82-83 points.

Thanks!

Alejandro.

Gail Kronick (Student Judge, Pacific South Judging Center)

This is my first submission to virtual judging, and by coincidence, I had the good fortune to be on the judging team in Hawaii that awarded the AM/AOS on August 6, 2025. The Hawaii plant had nine beautiful blooms, so this candidate plant with 28 flowers would have been amazing to see in person! The inflorescence is tall and strong with a nice spiral bud arrangement. There is good spacing between the flowers without much crowding. Flower color is rich with a nice thick waxy substance, however I think the form is just a tiny bit below the Hawaii plant. There is more cupping present, the petals are not as flat, and many of the flowers are downward facing. On the other hand, the horizontal natural spread is nearly 2 cm wider than the Hawaii plant, which is very cool considering the much higher flower count.

Despite the faults in the individual flowers, my research indicates that the breeding goal for multiflowered Cattleyas is on improving the inflorescence more than the individual flower form, and there is no ignoring the high flower count and arrangement on this inflorescence. I would score this at a mid to high AM and would love to see the plant again when it is larger with more inflorescences for a possible culture award.

Gail Kronick

(student judge, Pacific South Judging Center)

Exhibitor - Keith Davis (Keith Davis Orchids, www.keithdavisorchids.com), NC

Virtual Award Description

Twenty-eight well-presented, slightly cupped flowers and no buds on one erect branched 40.6-cm inflorescence; sepals lanceolate, dark burgundy; petals obovate, dark burgundy; lip pink lavender, midlobe overlaid fuchsia, side lobes closed over the column; column light fuchsia, tipped purple, anther cap white with purple dot; substance firm; texture waxy.

Grower's Advice

All growths prior to this year’s growth had plateaued out in height and the last two years produced 19 flowers each.  Back in January, I placed ¾” of Pro-Mix HP-CC on top of the old mix.  This product contains mycorrhizae. Mix was not changed and plant hung in the same place it has for the last 6 years.  The only change was the addition of the Pro-Mix.  This year’s growth (without the inflorescence) is 8” taller than any previous growth and has a diameter the size of my two thumbs placed beside the pseudobulb.