Talk:Orchid

All orchids are mycoheterotrophes

The "ecology" section seems to imply that only the species of Orchidaceae that lack clorophyll are to be considered mycoheterotrophic, that's not the case. All orchids, at least as they germinate, are mycoheterotrophic, some lose the need to be as they grow (Orchis for example), others are mostly dependant on the symbiosis throughout their lives (most Cephalanthera), others are completely dependant, the latter being the category the article refers to. I'd change it myself but my english is not the best and I'm new to editing Wikipedia Cardocca (talk) 20:16, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Cardocca: I would be happy to add the statement "All orchids, at least as they germinate, are mycoheterotrophic...." if you would add a reference that I can access, here. Gderrin (talk) 21:35, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, this is freely accessible i believe. Cardocca (talk) 21:39, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

There are no saprophytic orchids

Although old academic articles refer to some orchids as saprophytic, this is an obsolete term that should not be perpetuated in Wikipedia. There is no plant that directly consumes dead organic matter (saprophytic). Orchids are mycoheterotrophic. Some orchids depend on saprotrophic fungi. In these cases, the saprotrophic lifestyle is exercised by the fungus, not the plant. Further discussion on this incorrect terminology in the following article: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8137.1994.tb04272.x Flora and fauna man (talk) 12:43, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

Fix the Page

The Page is Broken 2600:6C5C:6A00:2F2:3D6B:5C0F:4C4A:33DE (talk) 21:47, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting this. Now fixed  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   21:59, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Number of cultivars

I've just made an edit removing the statement that horticulturalists have produced "more than 100,000" hybrids and cultivars. I noticed that the figure was only in the lead and not the article body, and unsourced.

I went digging in the page history and found the 100,000 figure was first added in 2005 with no source, by an IP user. Before that the number given was 60,000, which was included with no source in the very first version of the page in 2001, also by an IP user.

I haven't been able to find any trustworthy sources for an estimated number of orchid cultivars. Unfortunately because the 100,000 figure has been right at the top of the wikipedia page for so long, there are countless sources which clearly just referred to wikipedia in the first place, so we need to be really careful not to reintroduce the number with a circular citation.

The Royal Horticultural Society is the ICRA for orchids, and they do have an online database. But it's only searchable by genus or grex, there doesn't seem to be an unfiltered 'countable' version that's publicly accessible. I'll keep looking, but if anyone else has any leads please go ahead. Averixus (talk) 08:03, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

If you stick Phalaenopsis into the RHS seed parentage search box you get 40,000 results; for Paphiopedilum 30,000; for Cymbidium 18,000; for Cattleya 40,000; for Dendrobium 17,000. "more than 100,000" seems very plausible, though there is potential scope for misinterpretation of the results. (Are false positives a possibility? Are synonyms included?)

The blurbs for two editions of the Addenda to Sander's List, covering the 6 years 2014-2019, say that they include 20,000 hybrids. (I was looking to see if a number could be found in an Orchid Register Supplement or Orchid Review. The Reviews seem to be unavailable online, and the Supplements don't appear to give numbers.) Lavateraguy (talk) 12:43, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, good thinking. I don't doubt the number (I'm sure it's much more than 100,000), only the vagueness and lack of citation.

Would summing the totals from those RHS searches to give an estimate be considered original research? I think synonyms are included in the listings but they'd only be a very small proportion. Averixus (talk) 17:55, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I believe that the relevant bits of policy are WP:SYN (a subset of WP:OR) and WP:NOTSYNTH. Synthesis is defined as combining two different sources to draw a conclusion not explicitly made in either source. If one were to rules lawyer this, one could argue that the RHS Orchid Register is a single source. But WP:CALC is a better argument, or in extremity WP:IAR. It seems that summing the total from the RHS searches is acceptable; my concern is that the meaning of the returned numbers is not fully transparent. (For comparison the RHS Find a Plant database numbers are grossly inflated by synonyms.)

If the Register Supplement had exact or approximate counts of new registers in each supplement adding up these numbers would be legitimate, but these numbers do not seem to be consistently provided, so one would be reduced to multiplying the number of pages by the (variable) number of entries per page Lavateraguy (talk) 21:24, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I wonder if it would actually be best to just give a sense of the rate new cultivars are being introduced, rather than the total number. The most recent sander's addendum (2017-2019) quotes "over 11,000" registrations in the blurb. Maybe a simple statement like "Several thousand new orchid cultivars are bred each year"? Averixus (talk) 22:02, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Strictly speaking the RHS register records registrations, rather than productions or introductions. Production, introduction and registration occur at different dates, cultivars can be introduced into commerce without registration, or registered without ever being introduced into commerce.

Another point that has now crossed my mind is the question as to how many of the named cultivars are still extant. "have been produced" doesn't need correction for extinction, but a casual reader might interpret such as number as representative of the number of existing cultivars.

I wonder how often a cultivar is registered for show purposes, but never propagated, and becomes extinct after a few years. Lavateraguy (talk) 12:12, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Exactly, that's another reason I think an estimate of new cultivars might be more useful. With so many being produced each year, most quickly become lost or irrelevant and the focus is very much on the latest creations. Averixus (talk) 12:25, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I replied before your added points. Fair point about introductions vs registrations - that could be clarified in the statement, e.g. "Several thousand new orchid cultivars are registered by the Royal Horticultural Society each year." Averixus (talk) 13:47, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

What the RHS registers are grexes. Not cultivars and I don't think there is a list of orchid cultivars. Orchids are generally known by their grex name or trade name. So you can only make a statement that "on 24 Novermber there were 192,837 registered grexes". Weepingraf (talk) 10:14, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I had completely missed that. How strange that the cultivar registration authority for orchids appears not to register any cultivars! In that case I'll update my suggestion again to: "Several thousand new orchid grexes are registered by the Royal Horticultural Society each year." Averixus (talk) 10:29, 25 November 2024 (UTC)