Gene: At least one person already thought this was a worthy cross. Whether
you should do a re-make depends on your goals, and on the quality of your
parent plants.

Do you want just a few for yourself, or is this a commercial venture? If
for yourself, are you going to do your own flasking? Or have a buddy that
does it at home? Do you have room to grow out hundreds of seedlings to find
the best ones? Or do you just want to "see what happens" out of the first
50 or 100?

If commercial, do you have reason to believe your parent plants are
superior to those used to make the original? Or that the reciprocal cross
[see below] would be better than what the first person made? And have you
looked into the cost/minimum of having a pod flasked for you? [Back to "how
much room do you have" G -- I have yet to find a lab that wants to do less
than 1000; if you find one, kindly email contact info!] You have, of
course, already lost the opportunity to name the cross.

Barring a good reason not to, it's generally best to make a cross both ways.
The reasons for doing it both ways a First, it may "take" one way and
not the other; secondly, if you can afford to grow both sets of offspring,
they may be quite different, even though they'll bear the same name [see
below]. Reasons not to will vary by hybridizer, but as an example, I use S.
tibicinis only as a pollen donor because I can't afford the space to keep
those 12' spikes around for 6+ months to let pods mature. Even though the
one you see lists the Schombo as the pod parent, that only means it was the
first registered. Offspring of the reciprocal cross will carry the same
name even though the parents are reversed [last I looked ...] Kenni



"Gene Schurg" wrote in message
news:IAB3f.19353$at1.15131@trnddc05...
I was in the Greenhouse and it appears that my L. anceps and Schomburgkia
splendida will both be in flower at the same time. Both of these monsters
have flowers on long inflorenses but the flowers are very different. I
was
thinking....what would happen if they were crossed?

A search of the RHS website shows this to be Schombolaelia Splendid Spire
registered by SBOE in 2003.

Picture of this is at
http://sborchid.com/OrchidOfTheDay/S...endidSpire.htm

Those of you in the know, is this a worthy cross? Sounds like a lot of
fun.
The registered cross shows the seed parent as the Schomburgkia. If I get
the change should I try it both ways?