Philippine Gardens
(A special section on flowers and ornamental plants)
When Juan Omoso was commissioned by the Menzi Agricultural Corporation to clear the land in Basilan during the late 60’s for the rubber tree planting, he noticed that one of the felled trees has 2 clumps of Walingwalings, so he decided to take it home as gift to his wife Augustina, an orchid lover and seasoned gardener. Augustina Omoso took care of the plants and brought them to Zamboanga where they eventually settled.
Orchidiana Philippiniana reported that Vanda sanderianas are collected from Davao, Cotobato and Zamboanga. The Basilan biotype of Walingwaling has not been reported by researchers. The 2 plants have distinct differences from the Mainland Mindanao Walingwaling. The flower segments are elongated and the general form is elliptical. At the start of the millennium, a well-known Vanda and Aranda breeder offered to buy the Basilan Walingwaling. Since there were no propagules at the time, he left empty-handed. When asked why he wanted an elongated flowered Vanda sanderiana, his answer was he made most of his hybrids using openformed Vanda sanderianas and that there is no such thing as an ugly Walingwaling. It took a foreigner to appreciate something that only Philippines has.
According to the expert, the ones we see as ugly are actually badly grown or are weak first bloomers. As the plant grows bigger and healthier, the flower forms and color improve and the size of the flower improves with the size of the plant. We have proven this hypothesis several times over when we bought lots of ugly ducklings from Davao that turned out to be winners.
Orchid breeders will need stable genetic source everytime they breed new lines of orchids. The species are the most stable sources of genetic materials and that is the reason why breeders always go back to species to stabilize the genetics of their breeding lines.
Currently there are 3 nurseries in the Philippines doing the conservation works on the Basilan Walingwaling and other biotypes of Walingwaling. Very soon, a group will be documenting and researching the genomics of the Basilan Walingwaling and other biotypes of Walingwaling.
There is a need to establish a genomic center and more researches on Walingwaling to authenticate pure walingwalings in the possession of collectors and commercial nurseries.
Latest estimate is 10 percent of the apparent Walingwaling plants sold in commercial markets in the Philippines are not walingwalings but are hybrids with visible spurs and vestiges of spurs (which the Walingwalings should not have). These plants may now be found in private collections.
We have also seen a big number of Thai imports that are not really the species but have genes from different Vandas incorporated into them and they can easily be passed off as walingwalings. Good examples of these are the Vanda Thavee sukhsa and its hybrids; There are also anomalous Vanda sanderiana alba’s and Vanda sanderiana ”totone” being sold that are not walingwalings at all but are hybrids.
This is the main reason why a definitive analytical method is needed to authenticate the species.