Yellow Dend missing petals! Nuts!

[Becky15349]

Hi guys! I haven't posted in here in forever - but I had to share this with my orchid geeks So I have this yellow dendrobium (yellow song 'canary') and it just started blooming...and I'm noticing that the blooms have only 3 petals! They have no sepals! Its bonkers. I'm suspecting virus...has anyone ever experienced this before, or seen it happen on another plant?

[ron-in-norcal]

I've not seen anything like that. I'm wondering if it could be due to temp changes or something cultural that happened while buds were developing. Or, maybe it wanted a temp or other change and didn't get it. But, that does look odd, no matter what happened. I don't know if a virus can change petal counts or not.

[WhiteRabbit]

Sometimes there are just oddball blooms. Regular use of hormone products can also cause bloom malformations.

Has this bloomed normally before? I got an out of bloom plant last year that recently started to bloom, and all the blooms so far have an extra part - I suspect this one may be a bit of an oddball plant

I also had some Miltonia blooms last year that had some blooms with missing or underdeveloped petals - this plant grows outside, and we had some unusually cold nights when the buds were developing, which I think was the cause (plant had all normal blooms previously) .

[Cym Ladye]

This is undoubtedly a mericlone and since thousands of clones were made of this cultivar, there is always a chance of a mutation, genetic or physical in forcing the blooms. Sometimes it occurs on only a few flowers; sometimes on all. This is generally not a symptom of virus.

If this is the first bloom for you, it occurs on all flowers and you have just purchased it, i would send it back to the vendor and ask for another plant.

Cym Ladye