B digbyana is in the background of a zillion of those big old standard
brassos with the big flurffy, (although *not* fringed or heavily whiskered)
lips. These grexes go back to the late 1800s. It adds bulk and girth, but
the fringe seems hard to hold onto in subsequent generations. There are a
few however. When it gets bred back to some of it's big flurffy
grandchildren you get some fringing and whiskers. I think the prevailing
thought with digbyana over the generations has been that it's lip would be
nice but the overall thrown back and curved back petal structure of the rest
of the flower took several generations to work out of the offspring and by
then the lip frill was gone too. Just a guess.

Brassolaeliocattleya
Ports of Paradise 'Emerald Isle' FCC/AOS (Blc. Fortune x B. digbyana) is the
famous example of back breeding to species to pick up the lip.

Bc. Mrs. J. Leeman (B. digbyana x C. dowiana) is a cool idea but it just
"blended" the cool traits in the F1 generation. This cross or the two
parents are usually somewhere in the background of all large brassos.
Somebody needs to to do a selfing of Bc. Mrs. J. Leeman to redistribute the
colors genes and the fringing genes and maybe bring forward the extravagent
traits in both species lips in one plant in the F2 generation. A simple
blend misses the point.




"janet" wrote in message
...
On Oct 11, 11:48 am, "K Barrett" wrote:
I don't think the RHS website gives you this info easily. But that's where
you'd start on line. According to Orchid Wiz Jimminey Cricket has been
used
11 times as a parent. Since its lip is already the result of the cross
between nodosa and B digbyana you'd probably have to cross it back onto
digbyana in order to get the fringed lip you are looking for. Or go
completely weird and cross it onto something like Epi ciliata (or
ilense!?),
hoping the fringed lip will pass along.

Just my 2 cents. I have no idea if the lip is dominant.

Thanks! That's not a very long list. I'd think that if the cross of
digbyana and nodosa yielded a fringed lip, that then either the
fringed lip is dominant or it sort of blends.

Janet