2nd spike on same growth, 1st spike deformed

Here is somthing I have never seen before, my Paph. liemianum x delenatii is sending up a spike on a growth that already sort of bloomed. I say sort of because only one flower came up despite it being a sequential bloomer, and it was deformed. That happened about 2 months ago.

It looked suspicious as soon as I saw it emerging from the growth, there was no little growth to shield the buds-( I don't know the real name, but a the sequentials all seem to have a little flap of growth) The 1st on the left is it emerging)

As you can see in the pics the one flower's stem was very short and weak, and the flower was malformed.

This is a bushy plant that I bought in flower last summer, so I know it can flower normally.

Now it has sent up a small, but normal looking spike. Anyone have experience wtih this sort of thing? Do you think there is a chance that this spike will develop normally? (I cut off the deformed flower as soon as it opened, so it wouldn't waste energy on it. )

(The last on the Right is the new spike.)

It has never happened to me, but I saw this in another member's thread. I think it was also a cochlo cross, the first bloom was deformed and another new spike with a good bloom emerged. Wierd!

I was going to write a similar post about my Phrag Jason Fischer! Similar situation to your plant, 1 deformed flower, then it went on to put out two new leaves and 2 new growths. Such a weird plant :rollhappy: I wonder if my Jason F will bloom again like your paph, and I think your plant will bloom normally this time.

The same thing happened to my Harold Koopowitz early this year. It initially sent up a spike that had deformed flowers. I quickly snapped off the spike when I saw they were going to be deformed. It then threw up another spike with 2 big healthy looking buds. Unfortunately the spike was fused to the other spike which meant that it came out sideways. I was trying to make it more upright and accidently snapped it off. DOH!!!

I just noticed yesterday that the plant is in bud again, so I didn't have to wait too long.

David

Maybe a new try...??? hehe...

I had a liemianum X malipoense that did that same thing this past year. Second spike was normal .

This has happened to several of mine in the past couple of years. It's almost like the plant is trying to make up for a poor first performance.

In all cases, it sounds like you cut off the deformed flower and its spike. I'm wondering if the plant would have put up a second spike of its own accord or whether it responded to the "pruning". I know this is often done with many blooming plants to encourage more &/or better blooms, but have no idea if this is something one should consider with orchids.

It's in bud again; be happy!

I had this happen to Pedros Moon.1st came up with a mis-formed flower then pushed up a new spike in the same center which did develop but not perfect but much better than the 1st.Waiting for next blooming so I can decide what to do with it.

BTW Marilyn Hansen did this a few years ago but was fine the next blooming.

I left this alone hoping someone would point out what was really happening in these cases, I have answered this several times on forums over the years, and thought someone would take over.

What you have is one inflorescense, . The first flower formed on the inflorescenese deep in the leaf axil, and what you thought was a "spike" is just the exposed ovary, not a "spike". If it were a spike you would have seen the flower, the ovary below the flower, and then the spike itself down at the end of the ovary. After the first flower opened, the real, one spike continued to grow up out to where you could see it and then produced more flowers. Why am I sure this was the case? Odds are with me. I have seens literally hundreds of this, where the first ovary comes off the spike too deep for the spike to be seen, only the ovary. In that same time period I have only, out of tens of thousands of flowerings observed, seen one instance where two true spikes emerged from the same growth.

Interesting, Bob. I didn't know that, so now I've learned something new today. Thanks.

SlipperFan said:

Interesting, Bob. I didn't know that, so now I've learned something new today. Thanks.

Click to expand...

So did I! Bob it's a age related thing for some of us ......
now if I could remember .... what ..... ah ..... oh well, maybe it will come to me!

Thanx for the info.

Thanks the the info, Bob!

I want to get your opinion (and of course, other forum members' opinions) on my phrag. The picture is a bit hard to see, but the brown stem on the left is the spike of the deformed flower, and as you can see, two new leaves have grown from the centre of the plant after the spike died back. Will another flower spike come from this growth again?