© Frank Fordyce
Blc. (Color Equation x Lc. Orange Gem) 'Valentine Splash', photo from Frank Fordyce Collection, processing date obscured. at the Huntington Botanical Center, slide processed in February, 1974. The slide label notes "FF288", an inventory number from Frank Fordyce Orchids. The cross is not mentioned in Kay's records. From the processing date, the cross must have been made no later than 1971 — in other words, at least two years before Color Equation was registered. Since it involved plants that Kay favored, might it have been another of her crosses? "Lc. Orange Gem" was used extensively by Stewart's Orchids in the 1960's and also several times by the Crothers. It is apparently the hybrid now designated as Cattleya Orange Gem (1929), but the plant Kay used bears little resemblance to the cultivar 'Delight', the only other representative of this hybrid for which photos are known.