This shows what a great job those old time Botanists did. Very few errors.
As far as collecting every species in a genus, you must be one of the very few to attempt the feat especially when the number is around 100.

The nearest I come to orchid mania is having about numerous different clones
of Cattleya intermedia. Collect every Cattleya species....heaven forbid!

Dracula is one of the few genus you can do this with. 112 is a lot but doable. Bulbos have 2 to 3,000, Masdies 300 plus, Pleuros in the high hundreds. Then there is the 2 species genus Nagelelia, should be a little easier to do that one.

Nick

Ecuagenera has the mantissa, and has had four or five of the others in the past. You could write to Pepe and Ivan and ask them if they can get those out-of-stock ones for you also. They come to enough shows here in the States where you can get them picked up.

As usual, posting contains tripe, should have said i have 30 to 40 different clones of Cattleya intermedia.

Forgot about the Local Orchid Society Paphiopedilum enthuasist, i think he said he was missing about 8 species. He is computer challenged so no pics. sob.

Maybe there are some undiscovered Dracula in the wild.

That's too bad, I saw Ivan this Friday in Santa Barbara. He's still there, I'll email them and see if they can get a message to him. I doubt he'll have that particular one with him but you never know. I have left a wish list with them before, also bought some but got no response to the wish list which contained mantissa. Thanks for the info.

Actually I'll be visiting Hawk Hills this coming Saturday, should be productive. Getting some of these rare ones is not like pulling a box of cornflakes off your local supermarket shelf. They have to be in the right mood to part with them.

Nick

You are right, they have mantissa available. Now we are down to 10. They also show a nice red hirsute for $50, luckily a friend of mine has one, she promised me a piece. A piece if the Dracula that is. Little by little we are getting there.

Does anyone have a real close relationship with J&L? I have bought from them before but not enough to make me a know, favored costumer. Apparently they are about the only ones who have Drac pileus but only sell it to special people. If someone knows them well, could you try to get one for me?

Nick

J&L also has D. alcithoa in their online catalog as a new addition.

Exiting, need to be more vigilant and check the usual suspects for new additions. Down to 9 and counting. Thanks.

Nick

Try this search engine, Nick. Some of the results will be old and out of date, some will be current. But even with the old entries at least you can see who once carried the species; maybe they still have a piece on a back bench.

Here is a link that might be useful: Google orchid nurseries

Interesting site, may be useful in the future, bookmarked it. I searched for all the 11 plants. It knew about the J&L alcithoa but missed the Ecuagenera mantissa. Nothing new on the others.

Nick

That search engine is only for the US, I believe. But you can go into the Latin American dealers' websites online, picking the ones who come to shows here and take preorders.

I've done that several tims with Ecuagenera, works great with them.

Nick

You should give J&L a call. They may have stuff not listed on the web site. They also travel to a lot of shows so they may be able to point you in the right direction.

J&L come through big. Carcinopsis and alcithoa are available right now. They have pileus, saulii and carcinopsis but not ready for a division for approx 6 months. They put a tag with my name on them, hopefully a nice Xmas present.

Dotsonii has been promised so we are left with callithrix, hawleyi, incognito, mantissa, x radio-syndactyle and sijmii. That's a manageable 6 plants, it truly is becoming a treasure hunt.

The way I manage the Dracula is that I have the main plant which will not be divided under any circumstances. It is untouchable. I'd like each of them to fill a 8" basket or netpot, with a flush of flowers, they look spectacular. Then I have a second plant in a 3" to 4" basket which is the 'breeder', it is the one which is the source of divisions to make more plants for trading or sale at silent auctions. This is necessary as everyone wants divisions of the same popular strains. Once they've seen it, they all want a division of rozellii, vampira, robledorum, gorgona and 3 or 4 more. I need to protect the main plants of these popular species otherwise they'd get smaller and smaller rather than bigger. Having more than one plant of each species also protects in case the main plant goes south for any reason. By the way, if anyone wants some Dracs, I have divisions of many of them. Love to infect people with the Dracula virus.

In the blistering heat of SOCAL, mine and Andy's collection of Dracula will probably be the most complete down here. He and I have already traded about 4 clones which I have and he wanted. I have a slight advantage as I can grow some spectacular hybrids, he of course would get a full body rash if he allowed man made hybrids into his domain. On the other hand he has been collecting them for years and has a spectacular list of different clones for some of the more beautiful species. Nothing comes close to the GH full of Dracula at Hawk Hills. That's probably the center of the Dracula universe in the US.

It's all fun,

Nick

Forgot that I ordered Drac mantissa from Ecuagenera. That leaves 4 species and a natural hybrid to complete the task. It's getting exiting.

Nick

Nick, how exciting! It's thrilling to hear your goal is within reach. Rock on, WC8

You are nuts. No seriously.

You may be right but I don't think so. There are numerous members in my society who have over 100 plants of a genus. Cattleya, Paphs, Phaelies, Cymbidiums etc, etc. I think the adventure of tracking down 112 Dracula, communicating with people in Ecuador and Columbia and finding out what vendors keep hidden under their benches is probably a more interesting experience. This takes many different forms, I know a guy who has innumerable rupiculous Laelias and God knows how many Sophronitis coccineas. I know the latter changed names 16 times in the last few years but I'll always know it as such. Then there are the Angreceum nuts and the Neofineta nuts, I know a couple of these and they are over the top too. Arthur has over 200 Tolumnias and he is perfectly normal, I think.

In our own way, I think we all are a little nuts, we would not be doing this otherwise. I make no excuse for my nuttiness.

The treasure hunt for the remaining Dracs seems to be nearing it's end. I did however noticed a number of lovely Masdevallias at the Santa Barbara Orchid Show. There are about 350 odd recognized species of these. Obviously way too many to 'knock out' that genus, one would have to be nuts to even think that ----- or maybe not.

Please, somebody save me from myself, Nick

I was up in San Francisco last weekend and much progress has resulted. Drac antonii and Drac incognita are now available, add 2. Getting antonii, radio- syndactole and saulii from HH next week, dodsonii, incognita, carcinopsis and Chimera 'Extra' are coming from Columbia in early October, callithrix promised by HH in the fall, mantissa ordered from Ecuagenera, will arrive in SF at the Sept show and pileus promised by J&L near Xmas.

Almost done, just need to collect all the pieces. Only sijmii and hawleyi left. Sijmii is there at HH but very iffy, lots of plants with hawleyi labels around San Francisco but Gary Meyer says they are not hawleyi, they are most likely gigas. Will have to wait on that one.

The treasure hunt is essentially over as I can do nothing further with sijmii and hawleyi except wait to see what develops. Then there a few, lehmannian one of them, which are known to exist but simply cannot be gotten at this time. Gary Meyer is incredibly on top of this genus, if any one, he'll come up with new ones.

Right now 2 are left (sijmii and hawleyi) but then they are talking of splitting chimera into 2 species and other new ones are on the horizon, the beat goes on. I plan to stay on top of that genus and have a completely stocked greenhouse for anyone to visit who is interested in Dracula. Not too many are, oh well.

Great experience, Nick

Nick,
Great read.
Stumbled upon the thread while looking for saulii.

Did you eventually get yours?

Excellent work, and when we do get to your area I would love to visit the collection.

Any tips on finding a saulii would be appreciated too.

Tommy

Still looking for a few some are impossible, others like pileus which J&L has are impossible to pry loose from them as it is a slow grower and they have preferred customers. I got saulii from Andy but I don't know if he still has some. Stop by any time you are here. Just visited Hawk Hills yesterday and left John Leathers with a wish list.

He has some stunning Dracula hybrids and about 1,000 Masd coccinea types in bloom. The Dracs will always be there but the coccineas bloom only once a year so I got a basket full of beautiful coccinea types which emptied my wallet and left the Dracs for another day..

Nick