Help! Keiki growth from top leaf not stem

[Flower Spike]

Hi everyone.

I have a phalaenopsis orchid with new plant growth coming out of the [edit: crown], not the stem or beside the base of the plant. It is growing its own roots and has 5 leaves. Is this normal? Please see picture for reference.

• How can I safely detach it from the mother pant for repotting?
• If I detatch the plant, will it damage the mother plant and will the mother plant grow more leaves?

Many thanks!

[aliceinwl]

It looks like it’s actually originating from the crown. My inclination would be to leave it attached. The only option for further growth from the mother plant would be more basal keikis. Given the leaf mass relative to the roots on the keiki, it’s probably still getting significant resources from the parent root system and would be weakened if separated.

[Flower Spike]

Thank you for the advice Aliceinwl. I'm afraid my knowledge of orchid anatomy is quite basic so thank you for identifying the keiki as growing from the crown not the 'top leaf'. I've edited the title to reflect this.

You can't see it in the picture but this Keiki actually has 6 roots coming out. Once the roots are long enough do you think it would be safe to detach the keiki?

Is the mother plant unlikely to produce more flowers after the keiki is detatched?

[KingKong]

actually there is no keiki on your plant....

All that has happened is that the plant has produced aerial roots up its stem. The crown is still the motherplants crown, it just has some additional roots poking out.

You could decapitate the plant but generally people only do this to shorten the plant - if it has roots higher up those roots will become the new roots.

Then you would hope that the stump left behind would produce keikis. so that you have ended up with 2 plants but there is no guarantee this would happen.The stump could just end up dying too.

So far no keikis there. Now if the motherplant was producing a keiki it would make more sense to leave the motherplant and cut the keiki off to make a new plant.

Keiki's are generally formed at the base of the plant or on a flower spike.

A plant only has a keiki if it has more than one crown, if it only has the one crown, that is the original crown...

[Roberta]

There definitely is a new growth that appears to be emerging from the crown. I wouldn't really think of it as a keiki, but it is developing a root system where it could eventually be an independent plant. However, as aliceinwl states, it is drawing resources from the "mother plant" or "base plant" or whatever you want to call it. If separated, the odds of either of them surviving are greatly reduced. Leave it as one plant.

[Flower Spike]

Thank you for responding King Kong and Roberta. It makes sense that it's not actually a Keiki. I'll leave the plant alone as per your advice and hope for the best.