CYMBIDIUMS AUSTRALIA 
TSI 
Cym. (Hove x Claude Pepper) 
A Favourite Cymbidium 
W: were putting this issue together at 
the end of April, beginning of May 
and a dear old friend tends to come to mind 
more often than usual at this time. Dean 
Roesler passed away on the 25th of May 
2005. 
Thinking of Dean also reminded us that 
we need to send off some cymbidium 
hybrid registrations, one of which is a 
crossing of Deans from some years ago. 
The hybrid in question is Cym. (Hove 
“Gold Lamb’ x Claude Pepper ‘Chariots of 
Fire’) and while none of the seedlings we 
flowered from this cross will ever win a 
show, they have remained among our 
favourite cymbidiums for the past six or 
seven years. 
As Dean often used to say, “Seen Any 
The Australian Orchid Review, June/July 2009 
4 > 
Old 
Friend 
Text and photograph by Rob Smith 
Good Orchids Lately’? and in the case of 
this cross of his we’d have to answer, “Yes 
we have”. 
OK, so the flowers aren’t huge, only 
around 95mm and the shape, while attrac- 
tive, isn’t going to win any quality awards, 
but the plants are compact, vigorous and 
floriferous. Up to eight or nine spikes are 
common on a plant in an eight inch pot, 
with around 15 to 20 flowers per spike. 
The colours across the ones we flowered 
ranged from yellow to apricot and copper, 
most with varying degrees of splashing or 
blushing on the petals and sepals and all 
had that lovely Cym. lowianum inspired 
Claude Pepper labellum. Knowing how 
Dean often approached his hybridising we 
can imagine him looking at the two parent 
and an 
plants in flower and saying to himself, 
“Now if I could only get that labellum on 
that flower...” 
Sometimes the flowers and plants we 
like the most aren’t necessarily the show 
champions or award winners, but the 
attractive and honest, reliable producers 
like this one. 
The form has gone in with the choice of 
names being “Kalbeeba Kid”~ or 
“Kalbeeba Sunset” and some of the 
seedlings with the clone pictured here as 
one parent should flower in the next cou- 
ple of years, so hopefully the line will con- 
tinue. 
Rob Smith 
aussiecyms @internode.on.net 
ge) 
