Leaf Variegations - L. lobata 'Golden Feather'
Vegetatively variegated sports can occur from normal green plants. Often these sports begin with a slight white or yellowish streak in a leaf. Leaves of subsequent pbulbs often lose the variegation and the plant reverts back to green.
Sometimes, the new leaves have the same variegation or a larger white marking. If the variegated portion of the leaf becomes large, that pbulb will grow slowly. If a new shoot emerges from an alba location of the variegated pbulb, it will be variegated or may become all white. If a new shoot emerges from a green portion, it will probably be green. The green pbulbs will grow much faster than the variegated ones. If a pbulb has all white leaves, it cannot produce its own food. It will continue to survive as long as it is connected to the green portion of the plant. However, if an all alba portion of the plant is severed from the rest of the plant, it will not survive.
I have seen variegations emerge from many different genera of orchid plants: cats, dens, catasetums, cycnoches, oncidiums, vanda, Aerangis ...
There does seem to be one general rule with variegations. Normally, each side of the center rib of the plant leaf is nearly a mirror image of the other side of the rib. If a variegation is symmetrical, it will be stable and continue on new growths of the plant. By symmetrical, I mean that the variegation on one side of the mid rib is a mirror image of the other side of the rib. The symmetry may be: a single white streak on the mid rib; mirror image white streaks on each side of the mid rib; a green leaf with mirror image white margins; a nearly white leaf with mirror image green strips; or even several mirror image white strips. The key seems to be symmetry.
I have seen this same rule apply to other plants besides orchids. If the variegation is not symmetrical, it will change on subsequent growths. This is not always bad, since a sequence of unstable asymmetrical changes may sometimes result in a symmetrical variegation ... which is stable.
Below are a few examples of leaf variegations. The first photo is a normal plant of L. lobata v. alba. The original developed a tiny sliver of white on one leaf. Over many years and after many new canes, the leaves in photo 2 developed. Another division has identical leaves.
Photos 3 & 4 are examples of asymmetrical variegations in den tetragonum & Cycnoches herrenhusanum.
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