Bewdley Orchids
  • Home
  • About us
  • Plants for sale at talks
  • Looking after your orchid
  • Seed cultivation
  • Contact page
    • Payment by cheque
  • Talks
  • Orchid blog from Bewdley
  • Orchid Gallery
    • Frost sensitive orchids

Colours and patterns

12/6/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture Early purple orchidEarly Purple Orchid
This picture of an Early Purple orchid is interesting because of the colour. This is one of the species that seems to have very little colour variation, like Butterfly orchids. On the other hand some species, most notably the Common Spotted has an enormous rage of shades from white through to deep magenta. In between these two you find species which have uncommon variation. One of these is the Pyramidal  where in some sites they turn up in white. All this may seem like a simple observation, but there are implications for the curious mind. The Common Spotted gives the impression that colour is controlled by more than two genes. Snapdragons have a simple red/white system with pink in the middle, so there are broadly three shades, whereas Common spots have an almost continuous range between the two extremes. We would assume from that that there are at least three genes involved, maybe more. This sort of variation is simple compared with the colour and pattern variations that we find in Bee orchids. 

The Common Spotted throws up another form of variation which is interesting because it may well be heavily modified by the environment. This, as if you had not guessed, is leaf spotting. We are at this time involved in a project to determine the interactions which create these lovely leaf patterns and whether they remain the same every year.


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Dr Wilson Wall, grower of orchids. A scientist by inclination and training.

    Archives

    May 2020
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Website content  © Bewdley Orchids 2019
Proudly powered by Weebly