Peloricism on sepals or am I just being delusional?
My Lc Dinard ‘Blue Heaven’ has bloomed for the first time for me and its lower sepals are sporting some throat patterns on them. I know peloricism normally happens on the petals, but can they also happen on the sepals also?
Not peloric. Peloricism is a mutation in symmetry. Normal orchid flowers possess bilateral symmetry, like humans. You can draw a line down the middle and get 2 roughly symmetrical halves. A peloric orchid possesses radial symmetry, like a starfish.
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Either way, those blooms are beautiful. I used to have this plant, and I just loved it, but I found it to be a very unreliable bloomer. It was not uncommon for it just to skip its blooming season. I think I still have it, but the tag is gone, and the plant I'm thinking of hasn't bloomed in a long time, so it could be it. We'll know for sure when it decides to bloom again.
"Peloric" as a botanical term does refer to normally zygomorphic flowers (symmetric across a plane down the center, like orchids) becoming actinomorphic (symmetric around a central axis, like roses or daisies.) But it is used informally by orchid growers to describe petals that have some of the characteristics of the lip. The most extreme are some Phalaenopsis that appear to have three lips. Less extreme are many Cattleyas that have stripes or splashes similar to those on the lip.
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