Cattleya loddigesii and Cattleya harrisoniana

Cattleya harrisoniana

Cattleya loddigesii and Cattleya harrisoniana are beautiful species; the shape of the flower is well-proportioned and appealing to me.  I'm not completely sure if my plants are correctly identified, but I decided to make a comparison between them since they flowered at the same time since these two species look very similar.

The web pages of Miranda Orchids used to contain extensive information about Cattleya.  Unfortunately, these pages were gone after the redesign.  But the previous informative web site can be found in Internet Archive (link), and the differences of C. loddigesii and C. harrisoniana are described here.  According to the web page, the geographic distributions of these two species are mostly not overlapping; C. harrisoniana in the east, coastal region and C. loddigesii in the west, interior region of Brazil.  there are some area where two species co-occur.  The flowering season is different; C. loddigesii is fall flowering while C. harrisoniana primarily blooms in the spring, but it can also flower in the fall (Fowlie, 1977).  I believe my plants hasn't flowered at the same time until this year.

Most extensive comparison of the two species can be found in  Fowlie (1977), and below I summarize it in a table:

character	Cattleya loddigesii	Cattleya harrisoniana
Pseudobulb	robust, rounded stems	longer, slender stems
leaves	thicker, firmer, rounder, darker green	thinner, narrower, lighter green
flower	paler pink, possibly freckled with tiny purple spots	darker pink, no spots
habitat	mountaineous region, above 500m elevation	coastal swamp, about 50m elevation

In the photo below, C. loddigesii is on the left side, and C. harrisoniana is on the right side .  When you look at the area where the leaves are attached to the pseudobulb, I can see that C. loddigesii has somewhat rounder, more club-like pseudobulbs.

 The leaves of C. loddigesii (left) is rounder and darker green than that of C. harrisoniana (left).  I'm not sure if you can tell the thickness of the leaves, but I can definitely tell that C. loddigesii has thicker and more rigid leaves.

Also, the shape difference in the leaves are somewhat reflected to the sepals and petals; sepals and petals of C. loddigesii are wider than those of C. harrisoniana.

Cattleya loddigesii

Cattleya harrisoniana

The color difference is a bit difficult to see from the separate photos because the adjustment of the color might not be identical.  So it is easier to see the color difference from the whole-plant photo with the two plants together, but I can tell C. harrisoniana has slightly darker color.  My C. loddigesii does not have lots of purple spots, but there are a few spots; one spot on the dorsal sepal between the petals, a few spots on the right petal and lateral sepal.  However, I do see about 3-4 spots on C. harrosoniana, too.  Looking at older photos, my C. harrosoniana had more speckles when it flowered in the spring.  So many of the differences mentioned in the table above can be seen in my plants except this aspect.  Hmmmm.

Additionally, the lips are supposed to be different.  C. loddigesii has a profoundly 3-lobed lip with erect side-lobes, which expose the column and a quite dilated mid-lobe while C. harrisoniana has an obscurely 3-lobed lip with incurved side-lobes, which conceal the column and a barely dilated mid-lobe.  By looking at my plants, I can tell the lips are slightly different, but I'm not sure how to interpret the difference which Fowlie (1977) was trying to describe.

Francisco Miranda mentioned that the side-lobe extends below the column is C. loddigesii, completely covering the column, but the length of the side-lobe is similar as the column length in C. harrisoniana, so you can see the tip of the column. This can be seen in my plants.

Lip of Cattleya loddigesii

Lip of Cattleya harrisoniana

Lip (inside) of Cattleya loddigesii

Lip (inside) of Cattleya harrisoniana

 

Finally, when you dissect the lip and see the inside, the central "ribs" are yellow colored in C. harrisoniana and the ribs extend from the base of the lip to the tip of the mid-lobe.  With C.  loddigesii, the central "ribs" are not yellow, and the ribs do not extend to the tip of the mid-lobe.  Instead, they stop around the base of the mid-lobe.  This somewhat seems to apply to my plants.

 

 

 

 

 

Flattened lips of Cattleya loddigesii (left) and Cattleya harrisoniana (right).  Note that the left side-lobe of C. loddigesii and the right side-lobe of C. harrisoniana are cut-off to show the shape of the mid-lobes.

Below, I'm showing the columns of Cattleya loddigesii (left) and Cattleya harrisoniana (right).  They look very similar.

With my C. harrosoniana, it is interesting that the flower is greenish white when it opens.  But within 24-48 hours, the color quickly changes to pink/purple.  Here is how the flower looks when it opened.

 

I got these plants from Bela Vista Orchids in May, 2016.  They seem to grow well at intermediate temperature.   Since C. loddigesii comes from a slightly higher elevation, it might prefer a cooler temperature, but I'm growing them in the same grow tent.

Literature Cited:

• Fowlie, J. A. 1977. The Brazilian Bifoliate Cattleyas and Their Color Varieties. Day Printing Corp, California, USA.