Chris Larson 04/21 ... "I have been looking at social media, then at the pics on Facebook. I have noticed that the pics of T. ionantha Renate on the BCR are not so good. Even mine is barely recognisable.
Can anyone with pics that show the attributes well - both in flower and out of flower - send them to me so that we can update the BCR - with your permission to use the photos of course."
Chris Larson ... "From what Derek Butcher said, Margaret's T. Renate struggled. He told me I was the only one Margaret gave one to, before it passed.
Peter Tristram & I got 2 plants from Andreas Boeker in Germany. One is indistinguishable from Margaret's plant. Mine are now mixed up. The other looks like the T. Selecta in your photos.
Lloyd Godman tells me that his is neither of these. I have not grown it - so I don't know.
For these ones.
1. James Hall's would be T. Renate - but again the photo doesn't show the relevant attributes to communicate the nature of the plant. James would likely have sourced this from Peter, or me, or someone that got them from us. So I think he is right.
2. Aaron Toh's would be Renate
3. PHG would be T. Renate
4. Lloyd's is not. From what Lloyd tells me it is a different source again.
5. Your PGH looks identical to the one grown as T. ionantha variegated in Australia, from Andreas Boeker. This plant is very unstable, in my experience.
As you can see, the plant that James grows, the plant Derek grew, and the photo of mine on the BCR don't look like the photos of Toh's or PGH - but due to experience, looking at collections in different states - & growing them both in very varied cultural conditions, ie. both cold & under climate controlled conditions here in Melbourne, I am pretty confident of my call.
The big problem with some of these forms of ionantha is that they perform differently under differing climates & culture. My aim is to get the photos of T. Renate to convey this.
Now to the crests. Due to the variability in different climates and culture - I could not make a call, due to lack of experience growing them and knowing the origins of each. I have them from 2 sources - and am confident that one is not from the imports I did with Peter Tristram. To my mind there is currently too much practise of defining things grown under different conditions, and naming them - often after the person giving them a name has only been growing them for one generation - sometimes flowering them either early or late - giving them a size difference to normal - then saying: Hey mine is different.
You see this all the time, as we have discussed Geoff. You can't do this unless you know the origins of the "new plant" are different to what is commonly around, and also grown it long enough to know it is not an aberration - if you don't know the plants origins, it takes longer to be certain.
But - with the number of newby's coming into our hobby, many are jumping on aberrations without properly assessing the situation. I have many people contacting me after procuring these "new plants" from social media, only to find no difference to what they have already.
Enough of the rant. We need to straighten up T. Renate on the BCR."
