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Phalaenopsis aphrodite (Rchb.f 1862)
 
   
Aphrodite's Phalaenopsis, Greek goddess of beauty
 
 
Distribution : Philippine Islands, Taiwan, Sulu
 
 
Synonyms

Visco-aloes luzonis decima quarta (Kamel 1704)

Phalaenopsis amabilis (Ldl 1838)

Phalaenopsis amabilis var.longifolia ( Hort 1845)

Phalaenopsis amabilis var.rotundifolia ( Hort 1845)

Phalaenopsis ambigua (Rchb.f. 1862)

Phalaenopsis erubescens ( Burb. 1876)

Phalaenopsis amabilis var.dayana ( Hort 1881)

Phalaenopsis amabilis var.erubescens ( Burb. 1882)

Phalaenopsis amabilis var.ambigua ( Burb. 1882)

Phalaenopsis amabilis var.aphrodite subvar.dayana (Ames 1908).

Phalaenopsis babuyana ( Hort 1941)

Phalaenopsis formosana ( Hort 1941)
 
     Epiphytic plant. Stem short, robust, completely enclosed by imbricating leaf-sheaths. Abundant roots, fleshy, glabrous, with purplish tips.
     Leaves fleshy, uniform green above, with more or less purplish relestion below. Very variable in size, 20 to 40 cm long, 5 to 8 cm wide. Elliptic or oblong-elliptic, oblong-ovate to oblong-oblanceolate, acute or obtuse, rarely rounded.
      Flower stalk much longer than the leaves, 60cm to 1 meter, arcuate, more often simple, occasionally branched, brown-purplished dotted of green.
      Bracts of 5 mm, broadly triangular.
      Flowers showy, white. Sepals very spread out.Dorsal sepal oblong to ovate-elliptic, lateral sepals divergent, obliquely ovate, delicately careened at the lower face. Petals largely rhomboid very obtuse twice broader than the sepals.
         Lip much smaller than the sepals, deeply 3-lobed, with the callus and the basal part of the lateral lobes tinted of pale yellow on each sides, punctuated and suffusionned of purple. Lateral lobes erect with cuneate base,curved, largely oval. Midlobe, largely hastate with broadly triangular acute lateral laciniae. Apical portion of the midlobe bearing two long and flexuous cirrhis.
     Peak of the bilobate callus, with digitate lobes , yellow and spotted of red.
     Column short , round, white.
     Pedicellate ovary of 3,5 cm.		  
 
Lip and callus of Phalaenopsis aphrodite (Sweet)
Observations
       Flowering is possible all year, but more frequent in culture in spring.
      Phalaenopsis Aphrodite had a natural area of distribution much more restricted than that of Phalaenopsis amabilis.
      In its natural environment consisted of primary and secondary forests at an altitude near of 300 meters.his it flowers throughout the year
      It practically disappeared from nature in Taiwan.
 
History

 
    The first European to defer the existence of Phalaenopsis Aphrodite is a Jesuit, Georg Joseph Kamel (1661-1706). Joigned in the orders in 1683,he was sent in the islands of the South-East Asia. With its talents of botanist he added an artistic direction and he became the first plant specialist of the Philippine Islands. In good place in his work Phalaenopsis Aphrodite appeared described with the language of the XVIIth century like a dove. Work of Kamel was neglected by Linne and Phalaenopsis aphrodite did not appear in the first list of orchidacees in his "SPECIES PLANTARUM".
     Rediscover in 1836 by Cuming which sent it in 1837 to Rollisson, English horticulturist who made it flower in the autumn of the same year.
      Lindley mistake this species with Phalaenopsis amabilis. When ten years later true Phalaenopsis amabilis was introduced in its turn, Lindley believed it has a new species which it named Phalaenopsis grandiflora. This double error was propagated in many orchids nursery and even in certain works, although the situation was rectified and clarified by Reichenbach since 1862.
      Unfortunately, the English horticulturists managing the word of orchids at this time did not accept an opinion coming from a German. This attitude still has consequences nowadays, because though all the botanists, even English, agree since 1960, the authority which records the hybrids is unaware of Phalaenopsis
Aphrodite, all the white varieties thus go down officially only from Phalaenopsis amabilis.
        This situation is now belonging to past with the acceptation by the royal Orchid Society of this plant has a complete specie ( 2003)
 
Botanical varieties
 
Phalaenopsis Aphrodite var.formosana (Christ 2001)
Synonym:
Phalaenopsis formosana (Miwa 1941), Phalaenopsis babuyana (Miwa 1941), Phalaenopsis formosum (Hort), Phalaenopsis amabilis var formosana (Shimadzu 1921)
     Endemic of Taiwan (principal island more Babuyan, Lan-Yeu, Lu-Cat). Green apple foliage , flowers smaller than the type, but more numerous on a very ramified floral stalk. Largely multiplied for flowered plant.
 
Average temperature humidity and pluviometry, evolution relating to the Philippines on the sea level (Banco area)