magnificum 'Mickey' x papillilaminum "Flatty"

magnificum "Mickey" x papillilaminum "Flatty"

This one has more pedigree than I do. The seed parent is a genuine piece of Miami plant history - wild-harvested something like 80 years ago, grown for decades in the foyer of Mickey Carmichael's orchid nursery before Enid Offolter saw it, fell for it, and walked out with a cutting some 20 years back when the plant was already thought to be pushing 60. Enid eventually donated a piece of her own enormous clone to the International Aroid Society's dinner and auction, where I fought someone for it and, happily, came out on top. A. magnificum is apparently a whole sprawling complex of ecotypes, "Norte" and "Silver" and who knows what else, but "Mickey" is the one I'd take to dinner.

The pollen parent has a much shorter resume but a good one - a F2 (S2, maybe) of the classic RLFS pap cross, Ralph Lynam x Ft Sherman, picked up from Tofu Sprinkles in a Facebook sale. I named it "Flatty" for its mostly-flat sinus, because I have a dozen paps in the greenhouse and you have to call them something. So this batch is old Miami foyer royalty meeting a flat-sinused Facebook find, which is honestly how most of the best crosses happen.