Really interesting "miracle" involving watery spots

[Orchidreamer]

Normally when a leaf gets watery, transparent spots, the damage is done, the leaf will always be scarred.

I had a plant that miraculously healed itself. This story concerns my encyclia, which was shipped to me in January. Several days after it arrived, all of its leaves developed transparent patches, which I attributed to cold damage. I considered cutting off all its leaves, but if I did that, it would be leafless. So I stuck it behind my other plants because it was painful to look at.

Today, I noticed the leaves are flawless like they were never damaged in the first place. What the...?

Before (taken Jan/Feb 2013)




After (taken 3/18/13)

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Are you sure those are really "watery markings"?

It looks like algae that normally grows on orchid leaves when they've been growing in a wet and/or humid environment. That stuff is easy to wipe off.

[Orchidreamer]

Thanks for your reply! Nope, it's not algae. I once received a masdie that had leaves caked with algae. At first I was worried because the leaves looked horrendous but then I discovered my fingers turned green after touching the leaves, so I laughed to myself and easily wiped down the leaves.

The markings on this encyclia, however, seemed to be inside the leaf tissue. I remember I did wipe the leaves down with physan as a precaution for secondary infections. I didn't find any algae; the leaves were clean. No pests or anything either.

This is so weird.

[silken]

Wow! Congratulations and that is very interesting. It certainly looks like a different plant now!

[Gage]

It doesn't look like fungus or bacteria, possibly a response to the cold or the darkness of transport.