Read halfway down page 163 of Christenson's book for information of about
the Malaysian type of violacea as it is contrasted with the Borneo type. In
short, the Malaysian type is the solid rose purple and the Borneo type is
what Christenson (and almost everybody else) considers separated into the
species called P. bellina. By this reckoning, if it is not a bellina it is
a Malaysian type. :-)

Redbank and PPFI are probably clonal names for the two parent violaceas used
to make your seedling and there should probably be single quotes around both
names. Perhaps the vendor can ask his supplier for information about the
two parents. Perhaps 'PPFI' is a shortened form of a longer clonal name.

No matter what, I suspect you have a Malaysian type violacea, which is to
say it will be a solid rose purple to purple flower, fragrant, summer
blooming with perhaps just a hint of a green border around the petals.

Type and variety are not the same thing in a language as loose and
freewheeling as English.

Check out this page in Japanese with lots of violacea varieties.
http://www.phalaenopsis.idv.tw/species/violacea.htm

I was surprised to see so much green in the one they label as Malaysian.
Just below it are some var. Mentawai.

Not everybody subscribes to the same taxonomists version of species
divisions.

"Ted Byers" wrote in message
.. .
I was looking for P.violacea v malayan. A vendor I know located, and
ordered, one for me. He said his supplier assured him it was P.violacea v
malayan. But the tag says: Phal violacea 'Mentawai' x(Redbank x PPFI). I
had asked about P.violacea v malayan because I had seen a number of photos
identified as this variety, in which the plant semed to be large and quite
floriferous, in marked contrast to other photos I had seen of other
varieties of P. violacea which appeared to be smaller with only a couple
rather non-descript flowers. But Christensen doesn't mention a malayan
variety of P. violacea and he does mention Mentawai as being from a small
island off Indonesia. Is this a case of my vendor being deceived by his
supplier, or a case where subspecific taxonomy is completely messed up
(not
too surprising if true), or something else?

Also, I take it that the x(Redbank x PPFI) part of the label indicates
that
the plant is a cross of something with something else, but what? Would
Redbank and PPFI be different named clones of the Mentawai variety of P.
violacea? If not, what does this label really mean?

Does anyone have a sense of what can be expected from this plant, both WRT
how it grows and WRT what it will likely provide to crosses made using it
(say with amabilis or schilleriana)?

Cheers,

Ted