UH507 ‘UNIWAI PRINCESS’
(AND UH503 ‘UNIWAI PRINCE')

‘Uniwai Prince’ (UH503) and ‘Uniwai Princess’ (UH507) are the fourth and fifth seed-propagated Dendrobium cut flower cultivars released by the University of Hawaii through the Dendrobium Growers Association. Both are tetraploid or amphidiploid Dendrobium Jaquelyn Thomas hybrids each possessing two sets of chromosomes of the parental species, Dendrobium phalaenopsis and Dendrobium gouldii.

Flowers of Uniwai Prince are purple-violet (RHS Colour Chart 80A), and those of Uniwai Princess are slightly lighter purple-violet (RHS Colour Chart 80B). The former is a cross between the tetraploid Jaquelyn Thomas ‘0580-3’ and the dark purple, tetraploid Jaquelyn Thomas ‘D 168-12’, while the latter is a cross between the white, inbred, tetraploid Jaquelyn Thomas ‘K 159-26’ and the dark purple, tetraploid Jaquelyn Thomas ‘D168-12’. Both of these new cultivars complement the three cultivars released earlier: ‘Uniwai Blush’ (pink blush), ‘Uniwai Supreme’ (two-toned lavender) and ‘Uniwai Pearl’ (white).

Table 1 shows monthly yields of both cultivars for 1980 and 1981. Although only two years’ data are available, yields and seasonality of older plants are expected to be similar to those of the cultivars released earlier.

Characteristics of both cultivars are shown in Table 2. Sprays of Uniwai Princess are slightly longer than those of Uniwai Prince, and the number of flowers per spray are correspondingly more numerous. Vaselife and percent bud drop are about equal. Plants of Uniwai Prince are much shorter and consequently more desirable than those of Uniwai Princess.