Subject: Re: Cypripedium "reproduction"
From: Jack Sanders <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 May 94 05:37:33 -0500
Newsgroups: bionet.plants

Oliver Sparrow <[email-masked]> writes:
 
>Several UK nurseries offer Cyprepedium spp grown from seed. I have
>recently flowered C. debile and C. japonicum from such sources. I was
>not aware of any particular problems: Phrags and Paphs are, of course,
>very widely grown from seed.

Many thanks. A number of texts claim that various North American species
of Cypriprediums cannot be reproduced from seed, nor transplanted, nor
divided. The claim is made by various conservation groups, including
the Canadian Wildflower Society, that any native found in a nursery must
have been gotten illegally or improperly. However, I noted Roland Gonroos
says in another message (for which I am most grateful) that some serious
research is being made into growing the plants from seeds. I lecture quite
often on wildflowers and invariably, when I display slides of Cypripedium
orchids and report their natural history, someone says he or she has seen
them in a nursery. And one recent said that in my area, they are being
successfully grown for market by an orchid expert...
 
Like the orchids themselves, a mystery...