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Thank you for your patience. As you
can see the button bar is missing from the left side of the page so you couldn't
click on the Membership button if you wanted to! My sincere apologies,
I am in the process of assessing and fixing the problem, but it may take some
time to figure out. In the meantime here are the links to the other pages
linked to the home page:
Membership Information News
Links&Vendors
Interesting
new article by Mauro Rosim:
xEncylaelia intermedia
F.E.L.Miranda, A natural inter-generic hybrid from the "Gerais" in Brazil, South
America. In the
Members Only area.
ENCYCLIAS:
Why, How, and Whereas
By Mike Bechtold, VP for Publications, Stewart Chipka,
Past President, and Isabel Lopatin, President
Why: From a distance, the many flowers on a tall Encyclia
inflorescence shimmer alluringly, and those species that have a mounding habit
create a striking architectonic form. Since the flowers are usually not crowded
on the spike, it's also easy to appreciate them as individuals, and many species
are fragrant. One more excellent quality of the genus is that many of the
species flower in summer, so the blooming season of an Encyclia
collection can run from March through September, or even February through
October. Flowers typically last five weeks, so the show goes on and on.
Encyclias range in size from small to huge, so everyone - from windowsill
growers to those with back yards in Florida - can find species and hybrids to
fit their space.
How: Encyclias are not rainforest plants: many species are found in
mixed oak and pine forest where winter is a very dry season and the plants are
completely exposed to sunlight. The trick to growing Encyclias is to meet their
seasonal moisture requirements without having them rot in summer or shrivel in
winter. Most species are intermediate to warm growers, but some get cool
winters or at least tolerate cold dips. Articles in the Encyclia Enthuisiasts
newsletter describe the temperature and moisture variations to which individual
species are exposed in their natural habitats. We also ask our members to tell
how they grow a particular Encyclia so other growers in their part of the
world get practical advice.
Whereas: Encyclia is currently a genus of approximately 150
species that closely resemble each other. The taxonomic path that led to this
is complex, the current grouping having been solidified in 1997 when Wesley
Higgins1 split about 100 species from what had been a very broad
sense of Encyclia into the almost equally broad genus Prosthechea.
Because this split is so recent, plenty of orchid growers have plants that are
labeled Encyclia but don't fit the current definition. Therefore, part
of defining Encyclia means explaining what it is not, as well as what it
is. In order to do this, we need to take a quick look at the history of the
genus.
In the 18th century, Carolus Linneaus lumped epiphytic orchids into the genus
Epidendrum, a name that means "upon a tree". As more epiphytic orchids were
examined, it became clear that more generic classifications were necessary.
John Lindley created the genus Cattleya in 1821, and in 1828, William Jackson
Hooker saw an orchid, collected near Rio de Janeiro, that he named Encyclia
viridiflora. It thus became the type species of the genus, but is a bit of
a mystery because it hasn't been seen since.
The word "encyclia" means encircled, and refers to the fact that the lateral
lobes of the lip encircle the column, which houses the flower's reproductive
mechanism. If you look at Cattleyas, you will see that they have the same
characteristic, and both genera also have four pollinia. Although Hooker
knowingly named Encyclia for a characteristic shared with Cattleya, he
thought that the different growth habit and the less showy flowers were
sufficient distinctions for establishing a new genus. Nonetheless,. the name
never took. It would have made some sense to call the Encyclia species
Cattleya, but they remained epidendrums for more than another hundred
years.
In 1936, Ames, Hubbard, and Schweinfurth2 grouped the
pseudobulbous Epidendrums into a section of the genus and called it Encyclium,.
They didn't consider this a concept that could be used for taxonomic
classification - they mostly did it because part of their work is a key to
Epidendrum species, and the first step in the keying process was to determine if
a plant had pseudobulbs or reedstems. In July of 1961,. Robert L. Dressler
published "A Reconsideration of Encyclia (Orchidaceae)"3 , and this
is when the genus Encyclia came into its own. Dressler discussed the
differences in flower structure between epidendrums and encyclias. If the lip
was completely adnate to the column, the species was an Epidendrum. If it was
partially adnate or not at all, it was an Encyclia. The other important
structural difference was that of the rostellum, which is split in Epidendrum
flowers. Dressler did not consider the pseudobulb/reedtsem distinction to be
crucial. While he thought that all encyclias had pseudobulbs, he thought that
some species with pseudobulbs were epidendrums. Dressler considered Encyclia
to have several sections and groups within these sections. The genus grew to
hold 250 species until Higgins moved many species to Prosthechea, leaving
Encyclia to contain what Carl Withner called :"the true encyclias".4
Volume 2, Issue 4 of the Encyclia Enthusiasts newsletter summarizes the recent
work of Carl Withner and Patricia Harding5, in which the Higgins's
Prosthechea is further split into a number of genera, somewhat the way
Dressler split Encyclia into subsections.
Encyclia Enthusiasts embraces the current definition of Encyclia, but
we include all species ever known as Encyclia in our mission statement.
This was a subject of discussion at our founding meeting, and we decided to be
inclusive because people weren't yet accustomed to the narrow sense of the
term. This gives us the opportunity to tell people why these species are not
truly encyclias, and we also consider them in their own right in our
publications.
How do you know if an orchid you own that is labelled "Encyclia" is a
true Encyclia or not? One basic distinction is that no Encyclia
inflorescence arises from a sheath. This means that vitellina, for
example, is not an Encyclia. No Encyclia has flattened
pseudobulbs. This means that prismatocarpa, is not an Encyclia.
Also, no Encyclia flower is non-resupinate, which means that cochleata
and the other cockleshell orchids are not encyclias. .
As we look at all the true Encyclia species, it is
easy to spot their common characteristics. One must study each species closely
to tell the differences between some of them, and often plants are confused when
not in bloom. Once in bloom however, the subtle differences are more apparent
and make identification of the specific plant much easier to establish.
We hope that this web site will provide you with all the
information you will need to truly enjoy the Encyclia species and their hybrids.
1. Higgins, W.E: "A Reconsideration of the Genus Prosthechea (Orchidaceae)".
Phytologia, 82(5):370-383.
2. Ames, Oakes, F. Tracy Hubbard, and Charles Schweinfurth: The Genus
Epidendrum in the United States and Central America. Botanical Museum,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1936.
3. Dressler, Robert L: "A Reconsideration of Encyclia (Orchidaceae).
Brittonia: 13:253-266. A publication of the New York Botanical Garden
4. Withner, Carl: The Cattleyas and Their Relatives: The Bahamian and
Caribbean Species, p. 11. Timber Press, Portland, Oregon, 1996.
5. Withner, Carl and Patricia Harding: The Cattleyas and Their
Relatives: The Debatable Epidendrums. Timber Press, Portland, Oregon,
2004.
Photos used with
permission © 2006 Greg Allikas - www.orchidworks.com
Contact Information
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