Victory and defeat in the cultivation of plants of the Cattleya Alliance.
Laeliocattleya Trick or Treat
Published Friday, February 10, 2006 by Damon | E-mail this post 
Laeliocattleya Trick or Treat is one of those great hybrids that has been mericloned to death. These plants have chunky pseudobulbs of a manageable size that send out swarms of bright orange flowers. The blooms are
very close to the color and texture of Prosthechea vitellina. The flowers are significantly larger on an individual basis though than its encyclic cousin, although they lack its flat profile: Trick or Treat flowers tends to be a bit cuppy in shape.
I've collected pollen from both and am interested in using them as pollen parents in crosses with Bl. Yellow Bird to tease out how color and flower shape traits are passed on. Brassavola nodosa passes on its characteristic star shaped profile with a heart shaped lip
consistently to its hybrids. What characteristics would dominate in the resulting progeny? Would there be any benefit to a cross between the two?
The ancestry of Lc. Trick or Treat in comprised mainly of rupicolic laelias with either orange (L. cinnabarina and L. harpophylla) or yellow flowers (Laelia flava). The single cattleya parent, C. aurantiaca, is also orange and is fairly unique among cattleya species in having a pointy spade shaped lip (C. iricolor is the only other cattleya with a pointy lip). There is no fragrance from this hybrid which is a pity as nice fragrance would really round out the plant's generally good qualities.

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