What are these

[ArronOB]

This small hybrid cattleya has new growths which definitely don’t follow the norm. There’s four of them - which is a lot for such a small plant - but the strange thing about them is their shape. At this early stage I would expect these new growths to still have their leaves tightly bound and relatively undifferentiated. These ones however have leaves that are already spreading apart, in fact are reflexed at their tips. That suggests to me they won’t actually grow much longer, but really I can’t tell what they will grow into.

I’ve seen similar but less extreme growth patterns before. They emerge from the backbulbs and never grow very big. These ones, I believe are emerging from the lead.

The plant is otherwise healthy.

Any ideas.

[Ray]

They certainly look like emerging new growths. The fact that there are so many, that they are deformed, and are mostly not viable suggests that the plant has been dosed with some pretty powerful stimulant (likely hormones), pushing it to do so even though it doesn't have the reserves to support them.

If the plant has not been recently treated as such, maybe it's just a genetic freak.

[WaterWitchin]

Whatever it is, keep growing it and post another picture later! I want to see how this turns out, please.

[ArronOB]

No, no chemicals, or impact damage or anything else I can think of. It just sits among the many similar hybrid catts, which are growing normally.

I’ll post an update in a few months, though I think the result is going to be ugly.

[SouthPark]

If the plant is healthy, then that's the main thing. It will definitely be interesting to see what these grows will do later - such as whether they remain dwarved or not. Definitely worth to document this. Nice!

[ArronOB]

Thinking about these, I wonder whether they are perhaps a response to cold or cold/dry weather. These plants grow outside, and winter is coming to an end. These shoots emerged about 2-3 months ago, which means in the early part of winter. Temps are down to about 8 degrees Celsius on some nights, which doesn’t bother most of the Hybrid catts, but maybe this one is less cold tolerant. Maybe it’s response to severe conditions is to put out some these dwarf shoots and wait for better times.

What makes me think this is that we bought this property 2 years ago and a previous owner had planted various D. kingianum and D. speciosum plants in the back yard - directly on the sloping ground. It’s much too dry and hostile for them and clearly the owners lost interest in abandoned them when they didn’t flourish. Rather then die off, these plants produced ugly, stunted, matted growths under the leaf litter - with lots of the red pigment instead of the green. When I cleared the land, I moved a couple to better spots and they began to grow in the normal way - but very quickly. Some sort of drought survival strategy, perhaps.