These spikes that transform into keikis are quite common among my dendrobes. All my orchids are outdoors and the sun is blistering by midday, and sometimes the roots of a dendrobe dry out and ... yes, even die. The base of the stems turn brown and begin to rot, but the rest of the stem is still green!
And believe it or not, these stems can continue to have a few leaves and flower, and then the stalks turn into keikis. Roots come out at the base of the flower stalk, and then another shoot starts and has leaves, and then a new plantlet developes.
We plant the new keiki by cutting the semidried stem from which it arose at a level about 3 inches below the keiki. What I do is to flame the knife at the gas ring in my kitchen and then wait for it to cool. It is now sterile. Then I cut the orchid stalk below the keiki, and leave it to dry.
[A friend of mine has a habit of sealing with tar the cuts he makes when he prunes his roses. If I can be bothered I squeeze out some strong gum onto the cut surface and in a few seconds there is a layer of plastic to keep it germ free.]
Next I put it into a clay pot with holes at the sides and bottom which is commonly sold here for orchids, so the cut end of the stem sits on the bottom of the pot. With my hand still holding it I add the potting material with the other hand -- charcoal usually. And this holds it firmly in place.
The right time to cut and pot it is when the latest offshoot hasn't put out its roots yet. When it does, roots go all over the new charcoal and anchor the plant more firmly.
What happens with the remaining stem of this dendrobe? Its roots have dried and its base is rotten. The head has been cut off with the keiki it produces is gone. Well, we tie this, and the other rotting branches, and hang it in the semi-shade somewhere. And would you believe this, keikis appear at the nodes again!
I had this precious white dendrobe of the dendrobium phalaenopsis type. All the flowers look like smaller version phalaenopses. Almost pure white with very little yellow on the lips. [This matters for bridal bouquets if the bride is determined to have pure white.]
To my horror, the base turned brown so that I knew the next keiki is not going to appear. End of my favourite plant, I thought. Hey presto! A keiki developed at the lower node, and I had my plant again. Then the flowering spike had its last flower dried up, (after TWO MONTHS from the day it first opened!) and I was loathe to cut it off. And it turned into a keiki, to my great delight.
I cut the back shoots of this sympodial plant with the same knife, and one of the back shoots threw up a keiki. At present I have three plants from the one I bought.
No, I don't fertilise it and simply water it twice a day, and it survived. As I mentioned in another thread I have this tendency to neglect plants that grow well in our warm and moist climate, and they survive. This is one of them.
Sometimes the plant grows wild. I have this dendrobe my neighbour gave me, which I mounted onto a tree branch, and after the last flowering, keikis grew from every node. It is weird and gives me the creeps looking at it. There are like 30 plantlets growing out from all over its three stems.
No, I don't know the names of these dendrobes. So I cannot recommend to you these cane-type dendrobes that can throw out keikis from their flower stalks so well.
Decades ago, when I bought orchids, they all had name tags to them. I kept a log of every orchid I owned, and jotted down dates of fertilising, and what I did to it - Fungicide? Pesticide? Response? Date of spiking, date the first flower opened and date it withered and so on.
Now, I buy home a nameless plant for the sake of its beautiful flowers and all scientific activity is shelved. My supplier is a big nursery and they disgrace themselves by tagging the orchids wrongly. Phalaenopses were named as cattleyas. I complained and the girl at the counter said, Never mind, so what? They are all the same in price. I told her no, it makes their company look silly. She didn't know what I was saying and looked puzzled. I guess I sounded silly to her.
Orchid growing is so commercialised now that it stinks as a hobby. When my orchids die, I just think, never mind, I'll get another one. I don't have to look after it with tender, loving care. It's only USD$8 for a flowering phalaenopsis of any colour and design (dalmatian spots, zebra stripes, tartan cloth, etc.)
I once picked up cheaply (for $3 each) about 5 pots of pink and red-lipped-white phalaenopses with the blooms were half-withered or their stalks broken. Nobody else would want them but me. The following year these threw out long spikes. The light pink ones had branching of spikes and they lasted two months before the first flower withered.
My Filipina maid, who goes to talk to my plants every morning, ignored my instructions to cut the flower stalks the moment the last bud is fully opened. Some orchid fancier taught me long ago that this conserves the strength of the plant and keeps it healthy for next year's growth. So, there were these stalks without flowers, and then a growth came out of one of its nodes and I was delighted. This was a side-spike, I thought.
No, it wasn't. It was a keiki! I had another plant out of this one! Somehow, white phalaenopsis is more prone to throwing out keikis from their flower stalks.
I have noticed this in the spikes of a neighbour's white phalaenopsis. They were loathe to cut the spikes after flowering because with more cool weather, the ends of the spikes often elongates to give a few more blooms. But in the case of my neighbour's phalaenopsis plant, a bunch of keikis grew on his empty stalks. He didn't repot these because (I guess) there are people who are not hobbyists and don't know where to get the pots, potting mix, and don't know how to tie the keiki to a chopstick to firm it in the new pot.
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