From Maurice Kellett: "Your plant looks like a plant that I got from Chris 28/6/06. It came from Paul Isley as a large T. dorotheae and you can see the T. albertiana in it somewhere."

Chris Larson: "This story has been here on Tillnuts a couple of times. Imported from Paul Isley - has Red to orange flowers. Bought as T. dorotheae. Derek diagnosed it as one of the "Mystics". It was sold at the WBC in Cairns. I asked Paul Isley if it was a hybrid - but he insisted 100% T. dorotheae. Doesn't look like it could be argued as a T. albertiana X T. argentina which some botanists are arguing is the case with T. dorotheae. Also it doesn't look like the photos I've seen of T. dorotheae - but Paul has been to T. dorotheae habitat. Some have got this plant from me - and many have it from the WBC. I have lots in flower now."

Len Colgan: 'I do not support Paul Isley's identification of T. dorotheae. Derek's diagnosis seems more likely.'

John Olsen: "I bought Isley's plant labelled T. dorotheae at the WBC Cairns and others from Germany. They are different!"

Derek Butcher: "Herein lies the crunch. We know that Len and I got our T. dorotheae from Germany, collected from the wild and offsets taken. They did not appear to be the same clone but had a similarity and we are fairly certain of their authenticity. Because T. dorotheae appears (possibly) to be a natural hybrid you can expect back-crossing to either parent and thus variability.
Now to plants from Isley. I do know that Paul and I had several emails before his book was published about how you identified T. dorotheae from the Dimmitt hybrids.
Years ago I pushed Dimmitt to register the 'better' ones of his hybrids. I say better because his crosses were supposed to be primary hybrids where progeny should be fairly stable but they weren't!. I was sure that foreign pollen was involved somewhere, or that the T. dorotheae parents were already (natural) hybrids!
So when Paul bought stock from Dimmitt under 'Mystic names' he was getting a dog's breakfast.
We may never know where the wild T. dorotheae came from, whether it is a highly variable natural hybrid, which ones have been re-collected from a population undergoing back-crossing, or which are from the 'Mystics' collection.
From a purist point of view I believe we in Adelaide have provenance, and others may also have Germany as a source. Is it a T. dorotheae that Ken has ?, or is it a 'Mystic' where only some were registered and the lesser ones were not culled. I can see very little difference in my two plants, but only one has a clear provenance.
The ball is back in Ken's court to check on what photos we do have in this area."