Re: P. cyclosecta

Jan Schlauer (zxmsl01@studserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de)
Tue, 22 Mar 1994 15:05:07 +0100

Don,

>> The latter having truncate-emarginate calyx lobes and non-secreting hairs
>> (the glands are not sticky) on the pedicel.
>
>I'd call the rectangular petals on my plant truncate, since the sharp
>angle on the two outside corners on each petal are well-defined and
>the outside edge of the petal connecting those corners is straight (looks as
>if cut by scissors). There's also one single emarginate petal on the
>flower ('notch' pointing toward the center of the flower).

Not without reason I wrote the *calyx* lobes (= sepals, i.e. not the
petals, which are the corolla lobes) are truncate in _P.reticulata_. The
corolla lobes are much the same in both species.

> The very fine
>hairs on the pedicel are non-secreting.
>
>Things may be even more complicated ... Gordon Snelling tells me his
>P. kondoi (which definitely has some unique differences from my
>P. cyclosecta (?))

What are these differences?

>may be P. reticulata. His plant, which is probably the same clone many people
>>now grow as P. kondoi was originally from Chris Klein, a German grower.

Yes, plants of German "origin" (they are of course originally Mexican)
labelled _P.kondoi_ are most probably _P.reticulata_, a quite widespread
and fairly variable species which has been collected several times, and is
cultivated in many collections.
Only very few plants which originally came from the Kondo collection, Japan
or from Chapel Hill Botanic Gardens, NC are really _P.kondoi_, a species
apparently not very abundant in nature as well as in cultivation.
Moreover, intermediate forms between these two do exist, making unambiguous
ID difficult sometimes. But as far as I know, no true _P.kondoi_ (with
elliptic- obtuse calyx lobes and secreting-glandular hairs on the pedicel)
has been collected since its description.

Kind regards
Jan