THE LARGE-FLOWERED CATTLEYA species have suffered from a bad case of botanical heartburn for more than 150 years — and some of the mistakes of the past never seem to be corrected. For Laelia purpurata, which is really a Cattleya, things even seem to be going from bad to worse, as I see recent efforts to reclassify this wonderful large and showy species as a member of the genus Sophronitis, which is composed of miniatures (Lindleyana, 15[2]:118).

The problems of L. purpurata began in 1831 when John Lindley established the genus Laelia. In 1831, Lindley described a Mexican orchid he called Laelia grandiflora (L. speciosa today) in his book Genera and Species of Orchidaceous Plants. The plant had relatively short, oval-shaped pseudobulbs that were different from the tall club-shaped or spindle-shaped pseudobulbs of a typical large-flowered Cattleya. The flowers were smaller, had a cut lip and eight pollen sacs (pollinia) instead of the usual four in Cattleya species. At the time, the new genus, Laelia, seemed to make sense. The plants were just different enough to appear botanically distinct.

Then, in 1852, Lindley described another new orchid he called Laelia purpurata. This orchid, however, came from Brazil, not Mexico, and it had tall pseudobulbs that were similar to the pseudobulbs of a large-flowered Cattleya species. It also had flowers that looked just like a large-flowered Cattleya. In fact, the only thing that made it different from a Cattleya was that its flowers had eight pollinia instead of four. Despite the plant’s being a Cattleya in virtually all vegetative and floral characteristics, Lindley pushed it into the genus Laelia because it had eight pollinia, and it has been there ever since.

Not everyone agreed with John Lindley’s decision to place L. purpurata in the genus Laelia. In the same year Lindley described his L. purpurata, Lemaire described the same orchid as Cattleya brysiana (Jard. Fleur, p. 275–276) and two years later, in 1854, J.G. Beer described it as Cattleya purpurata (Prak. Stud. Fam. Orch., p. 213). Lindley himself had already classified two similar large-flowered Brazilian species as Cattleyas, describing Cattleya crispa in 1828 (Bot. Reg. 14 t 1172) and Cattleya lobata in 1848 (Gard. Chron., 1848, p. 403). He later changed these Brazilian orchids to Laelia crispa and Laelia lobata as he got himself increasingly locked into the concept that the difference between eight and four pollinia was significant enough to justify a new genus.

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