New adventures with P. equestris and its 13 keikis - Orchid Board

Val · #1 06-06-2011, 09:43 PM

A follow-up to the old thread: http://www.orchidboard.com/community...equestris.html

1. Six weekes from my previous posts, and all 13 keikis are doing great. Now each of them has at least 3 roots with a combined length of at least 3". Most of them are growing their 4th or 5th root. (Several shots of KLN might have helped here.) One keiki has already "packed" (i.e. has been detached and potted) and will be moving to a new home in a couple of days.

2. It turns out that it's NOT a P. equestris, but a hybrid. I showed it to my society's meeting and an experienced member who used to be a judge in orchid shows told me so. Oh well. I won't love it less.

3. The experiment with sphagnum put around some keiki roots yielded an unexpected result. Whenever a root tip entered a wet sphagnum ball, that root stopped growing.
In retrospect, this makes a lot of sense: if a root has found water and nutrients, why would it ever grow away from that place?
Meanwhile, the "bare" roots (no wet sphagnum, but daily misting) continued to grow, but significantly slower. Therefore, giving water and nutrients to the keiki roots might help the mother plant, but is likely to slow the keiki roots growth.
After I stopped misting the keiki roots, they resumed their "normal" rate growth.

4. Six weeks ago, the mother plant was growing a new spike. Well, when trying to stem it, I managed to break it. Bummer. But mother equestris must love me. Guess what? Now it's growing spikes on every keiki. Well, almost. I've lost count at 9. One of the keikis is even growing 2 spikes. This is insane. And speaking of the mother plant being a hybrid, not a species: I bet it's a cross between P. equestris and Triffidus carnivorus

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RosieC · #2 06-07-2011, 07:22 AM

Interesting Val, especially about the roots when misted or growing into moss... does make sense but not what you might expect.

Great news about the new spike on the mother as well.