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From the President

It is done! The application to incorporate the COC is on its way to the office of the Minister of Industry (in Ottawa). Now we must wait for them to approve it.

My great appreciation and much gratitude goes to the team of industrious and enthusiastic workers who devised, revised and finalized the new Constitution and By-Laws of the Congress of Canadian Orchid Societies (COC) _ namely Margaret Blewett, Lorne Heshka and Jennifer Smith; I only advised a little bit. All of us are relieved that we have reached this important stage and hope that the COC will continue to improve and assist orchid growing across Canada!

Now I must tell you about a plant that has recently flowered in our greenhouse:

In June of 2002, we had received two Coryanthes species from Peru. I followed the advice of a man (Henry Teuscher?) from the Montreal Botanical Gardens, planting them in baskets (like Stanhopeas) with a much enriched potting mix and hung them up in our warm section. The one is showing a lot of buds. The other is now finishing flowers # 5 and # 6. When I first noticed the first set of two buds, I was amazed - they looked like human heads _ really! I ran back into the house to call my husband Will to have a look; he pronounced them to be `Shrunken Heads'! It took about two weeks to develop from these first observed 5 cm weird brown buds the mature18 cm orange flowers _ the Bucket Orchids. They don't look like flowers, more like something from a science fiction movie. Unfortunately, this amazing floral display with dripping honey, swishing water in the bucket, absolutely bizarre shapes and heavy fragrance lasts only about four days. With a total of six flowers, two open at a time, this performance still lasted almost two weeks.

Of course, I invited a few friends to come and have a look and we took a good number of pictures. We all were marveling at all this effort to produce seed.

I find that `flowers' like these make orchid growing an exciting adventure.

If you have some space in a sunny spot, do try growing a Coryanthes and enjoy!

Ingrid Schmidt-Ostrander

The Notice Board

Canadian Culture Sheets

The COC, in the person of Ross Otto, has produced a set of twelve orchid culture sheets. The sheets are available on the COC website as html files for viewing and PDF files for printing.

All members are invited to review and use these sheets and provide any feedback that may arise to the author, Ross Otto, via email at raotto@computer.org. It is the intention of the author to make amendments to these sheets as comments are provided by the Executive and members of the COC. Further the author intends to continue developing, in the coming year, additional culture sheets. Requests have been received to date for sheets on importing orchids (which is intended to be a brief synopsis and reference to Marilyn Light's excellent article on the subject), native orchids, and growing under lights. This endeavor will be undertaken at the discretion of the President and the incoming Education Chair of the COC.

Slide Programs

Cattleyas - by Ken Girard. This is an excellent program.
Oncidiums - by Gordon Heaps.
Fragrant Orchids by Marilyn Light.
Terrestrial Orchids and Their Culture by Bill Bischoff
Phragmipediums

More information on the programs is available on the COC website.

Note: When reserving a program, please include two (2) cheques, one cheque for $10.00 to cover the cost of shipping and insurance, and another cheque for $25.00. The cheque for $25.00 will be required as a deposit and will be returned as soon as the program is returned. Please include in your request the date of the meeting for which you want the slide program. Cheques are to be made payable to "The Canadian Orchid Congress".

The slide programs may be ordered from:

Janette Richardson
38 Straub Crescent,
Regina, Sask., S4T 6S6

Phone: 306-543-0560
Email: dale.richardson@sk.sympatico.ca

Note from the Treasurer

The new COC pins have been mailed out to each society that paid their 2002 dues, as per the motion that was passed at the Annual General Meeting held in Saskatoon, Sask. on March 24, 2002.

The motion was "to provide one pin per member for each society that paid their 2002 dues, as a one time event." The pins that were mailed to each society was based on the amount of their dues remitted to the COC. There are a few extra pins if any of the societies need more. Of course there is fee of $1.00 for each additional pin, plus shipping.

Please feel free to contact me if you require more pins.

- Janette Richardson, Treasurer

Name Change - Hot off the Press!

In the latest 'Orchids' magazine from the AOS, Dr. Robert Dressler has published one more name change. This one is rather important, I think. It is also a bit surprising - or maybe not, with all this genetic testing available now. Anyway, those taxonomists have found out that Cattleya skinneri (and its nearest relatives) is not as closely related to the other (unifoliate and bifoliate) cattleyas as everyone thought. Therefore, it was decided to re-name this splinter group as 'Guarinthe' following the Cost Rican name 'Guaria morada' for the earlier C. skinneri.

Of course, most will continue to use this old name; it may be a while before we see on the show schedules: Group X: Cattleya, Laelia, Guarinthe, Sophoronitis etc. but eventually, this new word will become one we use regularly, just as we are now getting used to calling the fimbriata group of Lycastes by their new name - Ida.

Tongue in cheek - far be it from me to advertise AOS pulications in the COC publication. However, you can read it all in 'Orchids' August 2003.

- I. Schmidt-Ostrander

COC Newsletter Articles

The COC Newsletters are available on the COC website. Articles from the newsletters may be freely reprinted in your society newsletter as long as the author and the COC are credited in the by-line. The text of any article can easily be extracted using a web browser and the cut-and-paste function.

About Ribbon Judging of Phalaenopsis

First off, let me establish what is Ribbon Judging: It is the standard kind of show judging that happens at every country fair, dog show, cattle show, flower show and yes, orchid show. All entries in each show are grouped into categories, where Dachs-hunds are judged against Dachs-hunds, cherry tomatoes judged against cherry tomatoes, apples not against oranges but against apples. There are blue ribbons for first place (The Cordon Bleu), red ribbons for second place and white ribbons for third place. (I have noticed that this order sometimes gets reversed _ why?) Then from all the blue ribbons in any group, the trophy winners are chosen: the blue ribbons from cherry tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, Roma tomatoes and Beefsteak tomatoes are all put on one sheet and then the judges choose the very best from these four to be the Tomato Trophy Winner! This is also the process at orchid shows.

There used to be a time, when it was simple to write up a judging schedule for giving ribbons to Phalaenopsis at a show. There were the species, and then there were the hybrids, just about all of them were the long-stemmed descendants of Phal. amabilis and her "Eu-phalaenopsis" sisters.

The list might have looked like this:

Class 1a Species Phalaenopsis
Class 1b Species Doritis
Class 2a Hybrid Phalaenopsis white
Class 2b Hybrid Doritaenopsis white
Class 3a Hybrid Phalaenopsis pink
Class 3b Hybrid Doritaenopsis pink
Class 4 all other hybrids.

The blue ribbon winners in any of these five groups were again compared and from them was chosen the trophy for Best Phalaenopsis in Show.

When the hybridizers got busy with their little toothpicks, they seemingly did not leave any species untouched. Now there are not many Phalaenopsis species left that have NOT been used in hybridizing. Actually, the only ones, I believe, are the newly discovered species. In order to do justice to these many different looking flowers, we have to make up more and more classes, so that we don't judge apples against oranges _ in the first few rounds.

All the Phalaenopsis hybrids come from the following diverse group of Phalaenopsis species (Dr. H. Sweet's listing):

Amboinense, Aphyllae, Eu-Phalaenopsis, Fuscatae, Parishiae, Polychilos, Probiscioides, Stauroglottis and Zebrinae (with four separate titles).

Now, everyone who grows Phalaenopsis realizes that there are those with long stems, like Phal. amabilis and then there are those with short stems that can re-bloom from these short stems, like Phal. lueddemanniana.

Now we are getting into rough waters and I can only touch upon the tips of the icebergs here, in order not to bore you terribly.

Usually, the ribbon judging groupings are done by colour. Therefore, we have classes for `sunset shades', `art shades' `novelties' etc. And how often is a colour called `red' when it really is yellow overlaid with red spots, or deep rosy-lavender? How many exhibitors are colour blind? How many growers realize that the Eu-phalaenopsis group is the only supplier of long stems in Phalaenopsis?

There are a number of multi-generic hybrids, like for instance Phal. Kona Butterfly, which has in its family tree the following species:

Phal. amabilis _ 23.55%
Phal. amboinensis _ 14.06%
Phal. aphrodite _ 7.32%
Phal. equestris - 2.15%
Phal. sanderiana _ 2.93%
Phal.lueddemaniana- 8.79%
Phal. schillerinana _ 19.26%
Phal. violacea _ 6.25%
Phal. stuartiana _ 1.34%
Phal. rimestadiana _ 14.34%

Total of Eu-Phalaenopsis: 68.74%
Total of short-stem species: 31.25%

When entering this Phal. Kona Butterfly and going by colour alone, you would enter it with others of Phal. lueddemannian var. pulchra breeding (as in Zebrinae above).

Then it would compete against bright, glowing almost red flowers with a lacquered surface but short stems. However, its growth and flowering habit goes after the Eu-Phalaenopsis Phal. amabilis, meaning it has a long, arching inflorescence; its flowers are deep, dusky pink with a matte surface. I believe that it would be better to place this hybrid not with its short-stemmed cousins but rather with long-stemmed ones - it might get a ribbon there!

Therefore, I suggest that, as far as possible, we might try to make up our ribbon-judging classes with this flowering habit in mind. It certainly will be more useful to novice ribbon judges to judge all the long, arching stemmed groups separately from those plants with short inflorescences, of course, all sorted into separate colours. This will result perhaps in more classes yet, but would make it easier for the ribbon judges to decide which flower compares well against its competitors.

One thing will be very useful in reducing these classes: applying Dr. Eric Christenson's theory that Phalaenopsis and Doritis are to be classified as plain Phalaenopsis.

Yes _ I know _ things will change, continuously. We shall have to address this problem again and again. Or shall we throw all Phalaenopsis into one big class and let the hapless judges worry about awarding WHAT?

- Ingrid Schmidt-Ostrander

Smuggling Case Settled

A court case in Winnipeg involving smuggled Chinese paphs has been concluded. Officials seized the plants at the Winnipeg airport three years ago after a local orchid vendor tried to smuggle them in from Taiwan.

Since the plants could not be identified until they bloomed, the plants had to be grown for a year and a half. The plants turned out to be four kinds of endangered orchids - all Asian lady slippers from mainland China. It was the second shipment; the first had already been sold to collectors in the community, who paid anywhere from $30 - $100 per plant.

As part of the plea bargain, Winnipeg's Assiniboine Park Conservatory can keep the seized plants. A portion of the $15,000 fine imposed on the local business will also go toward building an orchid display at the conservatory. The exhibit will explain why smuggling is wrong.

[To see what is required to import orchids legally, see the document at the COC website:
http://www.CanadianOrchidCongress.ca/import.html]

International Orchid Conservation Congress II

The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota, Florida will host International Orchid Conservation Congress II in May 17-21, 2004. Selby Gardens hosted the Epiphyte Symposium in 1985, International Forest Canopy Symposia in 1994 and 1998, and the Orchid Conservation Conference in 1997.

Selby Gardens is the world center for orchid identification and research. The specialized living epiphyte collection of 20,000 plants includes 5000 orchids. The herbarium collection numbers approximately 85,000 sheets with more than 1700 type specimens. An orchid spirit collection numbers 24,000 bottles of orchid flowers preserved in alcohol. Selby Gardens also has the highest number of affiliated orchid experts on staff than does any other botanical garden in the world. These strengths make Selby Gardens an ideal site for a pre-congress workshop.

http://www.selby.org/iocc/ioccsummary.htm
http://www.selby.org/iocc/IOCCRegistrationForm.pdf

Canadian Orchid Congress
Annual General Meeting April 6, 2003
Minutes

Officers Present:
Ingrid Schmidt-Ostrander: President
Margaret Blewett: Vice-President
Terry Kennedy: Secretary
Ross Otto: Education
Marilyn Light: Conservation

Officers Absent And Excused:
Janette Richardson: Treasurer
Ken Girard: Trophies and Pins
Lynne Cassidy: Past President

Delegates signed in:
Judy Adams - Eastern Canada OS
Ross Otto - Foothills OS
Rosina Sutter - London OS
Lorne Heshka - Manitoba Orchid Society
Jean Ikeson - OS Nova Scotia
Jean Hollebone - Ottawa OS
Terry Kennedy - Southern Ontario OS-SOOS
Mark Elliott - Vancouver OS -VOS/CVIOS/FVOS
Ingrid Schmidt Ostrander - Victoria OS

Observers:
Jerry Bolce - COC editor/COOS/SOOS
Carole Gert _ Foothills OS
Kevin Duerksen - Manitoba Orchid Society

The meeting called to order by President Ingrid Schmidt -Ostrander. She welcomed all those present and thanked the Host Society, the Southern Ontario Orchid Society. All attendees were asked to introduce themselves and to note their affiliation. Roll call determined that there were 9 delegates and Ingrid had 14 letters of proxy from societies who had not sent a delegate.

Lorne Heshka moved minutes of 2002 AGM in Saskatoon be adopted. Second Jean Ikeson. Carried

BUSINESS ARISING FROM MINUTES.

a. At the Saskatoon meeting a motion passed

to purchase the AOS awards CD and to donate one to each member society. Ingrid described the US $25.00 CD as a summary put out annually by the AOS with award descriptions and no pictures. It must be updated annually
at a cost of $25.00US and is of use mainly to AOS judges at AOS shows and perhaps to breeders. A unanimous vote decided that no CDs will be purchased.

b. Ken Girard was to prepare a list of Canadian speakers. As he was unable to do this, Jean Hollebone has volunteered. There was some discussion on how to go about this. Decided to start with volunteers at meeting (sheet sent around) and a letter to societies to ask for possible candidates. Jean will then contact these people. The list will include the name, possible topics and a contact means. The societies will then deal with the speakers themselves. Suggestion made that listing the possible speakers (for the monthly meetings) on the web site might be a means for smaller societies to get a speaker if he/she will be at a meeting or show near by.

c. Membership pins are now ready. Janette Richardson has them and is going to send them out as a one-time gift where each society (paid up as of June 1/2002) gets the number of pins equal to the number of members as of June 1/2002.

d. REPORTS:

TREASURER: Janette had sent in her report. The books have been audited. The COC is financially sound.

PRESIDENT'S REPORT: Ingrid summarized the year's accomplishments by the COC volunteers. Membership pins, COC posters, new Phragmipedium slide program, a set of culture sheets and a good deal of research into the incorporation of the COC.

SECRETARY: Terry K. had sent a card of condolence to Margaret Blewett and flowers to Janette Richardson.

EDUCATION: Ross O. presented a written report detailing his culture sheet project and asked for more feedback. The culture sheets have been posted to the web site. Requests for further sheets on importing orchids and native orchids have been received. Ross suggested that in conjunction with the efforts of the COC to serve its membership, the educational aspects should continue to play a major role. Jean I. thanked Ross for doing the Canadian Orchid culture sheets. Ross volunteered to continue his work with the COC culture sheets.

NEWSLETTER / WEB SITE: Jerry Bolce presented a written report. The main issue with the newsletter is getting articles. A discussion of rules regarding old articles followed. Jerry will try to archive the old Canadian Orchid Society newsletters on the web site. Marilyn suggested that it was important to contact the authors for permission to publish. When that proves difficult, then as long as the article is not changed, the author is acknowledged and reference is made to the previous publication, the article could be published. Jerry was thanked for doing a great job with both the newsletter and the web site.

CONSERVATION: Marilyn Light has taken on Education for the Orchid Specialist Group. She sees that without education there cannot be conservation. Her written report was distributed. The committee dealt with 1) representation of the COC in consultation with Environment Canada regarding trade in orchids; 2) development of a fact sheet on importation of orchids for hobbyists; 3) responding to enquiries concerning importation challenges. Neither Marilyn nor anybody else can do anything for the person who fails to get the proper paperwork before trying to bring orchids through customs. Marilyn also acquainted us with the Orchid Safari resources that can be found at http://www.orchidsafari.org/ and the archives at http://geocities.com/brassia.geo/OSTA.html. Marilyn has been contributing articles for the past 5 years. She included with her report two guidelines as they were proposed in the Orchid Specialist Group. The first one is a Code of Conduct for Orchid Growers for which she is asking comment. The second one is the Essential Steps Toward the Development of a Successful Conservation Education Program.

Marilyn also noted the International Native Orchid Conference will be held under the auspices of McMaster University, June 14- 18, 2003.

TROPHIES AND PINS Ken had sent a report about the production of pins, the Canadian speakers list and his reservations about the AOS awards disk.

NEW BUSINESS:

INCORPORATION OF THE COC AS A NON-PROFIT SOCIETY. Judy Adams presented the motion to incorporate the COC on a federal level, seconded by Mark Elliott. Discussion: Ingrid had sent a letter to all society reps asking for input. The details of her research and the benefits were outlined. She received a total of 14 letters encouraging incorporation. She summarised her points:
Fulfilment of the initial Concept for COC, Compliance with provincial Laws, National membership synergy, International credibility, Federal support and name protection, Eligibility for charitable status.

The one time cost for this incorporation is $230.00; the annual filing fee will be $30.00.

Terry and Margaret noted that the liability protection of the directors is the most important point. All agreed. No one spoke against the motion. Motion carried unanimously.

The existent Constitution and By-Laws must be changed to comply with the federal standards. Ingrid proposed to give this task to a committee consisting of Margaret Blewett, Lorne Heshka and Jennifer Smith, a lawyer and president of the Vancouver OS. This must be done within three months of this meeting. The amended Constitution and By-Laws will have to be ratified by all the member societies. This can probably be done by post and email. Margaret noted that anyone interested could go on the government web site and look at the Canada Corporation Act to see what changes need to be made. This was accepted.

COC SPEAKERS' TOUR. The earlier division had Manitoba becoming part of the Eastern tour. Lorne pointed out that Winnipeg is much closer to Saskatoon than to the Ontario groups, so Manitoba was moved to the Western tour. Yves Aubry (Quebec) will look after the East tour and Bill Bischoff (B.C.) will after the West tour. Will the COC subsidise tours? Discussion showed that more important than the subsidy was the logistics. Jean H. noted that long term planning will be essential and even then, not every society could always accommodate the speaker on the tour. All agreed that special meetings did not solve the problem. Co-operation among geographically linked societies is important because outlying societies were often missed on tours due to cost and distance. Joint meetings may be a possible solution. Jean I. pointed out that the length of time required away from home (or the greenhouse), when a speaker does a number of talks, also limits the speakers available. Jean H. suggested that because of the great distances, perhaps limiting the number of stops to say seven and having several shorter tours would work better. Terry suggested that asking a speaker to do seven talks plus travel in a week is a large requirement.

Ingrid suggested that the COC could subsidise the airfare of overseas speakers to say $500 and Societies will pick up the rest of cost. This seemed to be acceptable. Judy noted that Yves could not attend the meeting but was working on getting speaker for the fall. Ingrid pointed out that at this point the tour might have to be for 2004 to accommodate scheduling of meetings. There may be no tour this year. Further discussion was deferred until there is more input from the two organisers.

COC WEB SITE: This was covered in the editor's report. The most important thing is updating information on Societies, shows and links to vendors etc. This is being done.

ADVERTISING of future COC meetings: Some method should be organized at current shows, to let people know when and where the next one will be.

POLICY ON HOSTING COC MEETINGS: Ingrid noted that there was some misunderstanding about costs of some aspect of a COC show that also incorporates an AOS show. Mark pointed out that their president, who was rather new at this, was at a complete loss at what was needed with respect to a COC meeting. Ingrid volunteered to write up protocol for a COC Show. This was accepted.

NEW SANDER'S LIST: No support for this.

PROGRAM FUND FOR CANADIAN SPEAKERS; Ingrid said that 3 societies thought that the COC could help with program costs, but pointed out that COC was not responsible for regular Society programming. Terry pointed out that COC prepared the slide programs for this purpose. No further funding was proposed.

HOW TO HELP NEWLY STARTING CANADIAN ORCHID SOCIETIES: The one year free COC newsletter seemed like a good idea.

OTHER BUSINESS

Kate Stuttaford from the COOS had written to Ingrid to ask if the COC could act as an umbrella for society insurance purposes in order to reduce costs. Margaret pointed out that her experience with IODE shows this to be a cumbersome and costly endeavour. She pointed out that their Society has an associate membership in the Nova Scotia Association of Garden Clubs that, for $50, gives their society coverage under their umbrella policy. Something like this might be available in other provinces.

FUTURE MEETINGS

2004 Vancouver BC May 1
2005 Calgary AB
2006 Ottawa ON ??
2007 Winnipeg MB ??

Discussion followed concerning the cost of holding the meeting. The venue is the most expensive part of the
venture. What is needed basically, is the normal show areas plus a meeting room that will accommodate a few talks and the COC AGM. Jean H. put forth a motion that the COC fund one major speaker for the event to encourage attendance. Seconded Judy Adams. This will be discussed next year because of time restraints.

ELECTIONS

In Lynne Cassidy's absence Marilyn Light was asked to present the slate of officers:

Ingrid Schmidt Ostrander: president
Margaret Blewett: first vice-president
Lorne Heshka: second vice-president
Terry Kennedy: secretary
Janette Richardson: treasurer

Call for nominations from the floor. None. Nominations closed. Accepted unanimously.

Appointments:
Marilyn Light will remain Conservation Chair
Mark Elliott will take on Education Chair
Jerry Bolce will remain as editor and webmaster.

Ingrid called for motion to adjourn. Moved by Mark, seconded by Judy. Carried

No executive meeting was held because of other scheduling

Respectfully submitted, 30th May, 2003,
Terry Kennedy, COC secretary.
[Some changes made by the editor - Ed]

COMING EVENTS

2003

• Sept 27-28:Central Ontario Orchid Society, the lower level of the University Centre Building at the University of Guelph, Guelph
• Oct 4-5: The Foothills Orchid Society (Calgary, Alberta) At Winston Heights Mountview Community Center, 520-27th Avenue NE, Calgary, Alberta. Contact Lynn Kasper at phone number: 403-208-2285, or e-mail: LynnK@cnrl.com or kasper.lynn@home.com
• Oct 18-19: Eastern Canada Orchid Society at the Days Inn Hotel in Downtown Montreal
• Nov 8-9: Niagara Region OS at Queen Elizabeth Centre, Facer St. (QEW and Niagara St), St Catherines

2004

• March 13-14: London Orchid Society Orchid Show, Wonderland Gardens, 284 Wonderland Road South, London, ON. For show information: "http://los.lon.imag.net/losshows.htm"
• April 3-4: The Regina Orchid Society annual show and sale at the Core Ritchie Community Centre, 445 14th Avenue, Regina. Contact Charles Eisbrenner, email: c.eisbrenner@ca.ibm.com, phone: (306)545-2185
• April 17-18: Les Orchidophiles de Montreal Show, College de Maisonneuve, 2700 Bourbonniere St., Montreal, Quebec. For information: André Poliquin Tel/FAX: (450)653-9590
  "http://orchidophiles.qc.ca/" e-mail: mor-pol@sympatico.ca
• April 29-May 2: The Vancouver Orchid Society will be hosting this year's COC annual meeting in conjunction with its annual show. The Show will be held at the Richmond Curling Club on Hollybridge Way, Richmond BC. Contact the Show Chairperson, Jennifer Smith, at jsmith@LMLS.com for more information about displays, sales and tickets. "http://www.vancouverorchidsociety.ca/"
  

The purpose of COC news is to inform members of the meetings, policies of the COC, to profile members, and to provide technical information regarding happenings, trends and techniques in orchid culivation across the country and around the world.

We welcome your suggestions and contributions. Deadline for each issue is one month before the issue dates previously announced.

Recipients of this newsletter are strongly urged to pass a copy on to other members of their society

Officers of the Canadian Orchid Congress

COC Web Site - http://www.CanadianOrchidCongress.ca/
Please send in your show information - date, location, contact, etc.

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