Weird phal blooms

[Maru777]

Hello! I have this new phal that I rescued from one of my local flower shops maybe 7-8 months ago. It’s recovered very nicely has nice new leaves and now blooming for the first time for me. It clearly bloomed before because I could see the remainders of an old spike and my flower shop does not usually bring plants that are not in bloom. But because it was in poor condition when I got it, this is the first time when I see it in bloom and it is pretty weird. Also, pretty, but weird. I am wondering if this is because the plant was stressed and just recovered or if it will always be like this. I have had a first flower on a spike have some “mutations” but usually the following ones were normal. This one opened 3 flowers already on its spike that has 9 buds and they all seem to be like this. Never seen this before. What do you think?

[Jeff214]

That looks like a peloric phalenopsis bloom. I can't say if your specific plant will always flower the same way... but there are stable clones that produce peloric blooms each time. If all your blooms turned out to be peloric, it may suggest that's a stable genetic trait of your plant. Perhaps more experienced growers can chime in on that.

Most orchids have bilateral symmetry, meaning that if you cut the flower in half, the two halves would be mirror images. Sometimes things go awry and flowers have radial symmetry, meaning that they have symmetry around a central axis. When plants that normally produce flowers with bilateral symmetry produce with flowers with radial symmetry, that's called pelorism.

Google "peloric phal" and you'll see tons of fun photos. like peloric phals

I hope that helps!

[aliceinwl]

I agree it looks like some type of peloric mutation. I’ve seen pictures of other white Phalaenopsis with similar flowers. It should bloom out like this consistently. Neat save!