I am not familiar with all the terms, so excuse me if I use some incorrect terminology. I have a Cattleya that has pseudobulbs growing out of one of the pseudobulb, see attached picture (new here, so hope I did that right). How should I divide this without damaging the pseudobulb underneath. Do I just try to cut below the roots of the new pseudobulbs, which seems like I would damage some of the new pseudobulbs or just cut out the old pseudobulb and then repot the newly divided pseudobulbs. Thanks.
That is very interesting. I don't think I have ever seen anything like that on a catt. I have oncidiums that will grow a pbulb on top of an old one but not several top of one.
That is a keiki - a baby plant that is growing off of an established plant. I have a keiki on my dendrobium nobile now.
When you remove a keiki, you must wait for it to have enough roots to be potted up and survive on its own, and this definitely looks like enough!!
Do not cut the keiki off. Twist the keiki off. It should come off easily. If you cut it, you may damage some tissue of the plant or damage the new roots.
See
I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
You don't have to remove it, either. You could leave it on if you like.
Very strange Cattleya behaviour! I would just carefully remove it and pot it up after giving its roots a good soak. Put some cinnamon on the cut part of the mother plant to seal and disinfect.
Very strange Cattleya behaviour! I would just carefully remove it and pot it up after giving its roots a good soak. Put some cinnamon on the cut part of the mother plant to seal and disinfect.
Just in case you're new to using cinnamon, OP, I wanted to add that you should NOT put it on the roots. It will dry them up and make them die/prevent them from taking in water. It should only be used on open "wounds" of the plant and some other specific instances.
I made that mistake with a phalaenopsis when I was new to orchids.
Wow! I have been around Cattleyas for decades and have not seen this but once. Throwing keikis are sort of the norm for Dendrobium, but a rarity in Cat's. It probably will not snap off like a Dendro keiki will, so you may take care when you remove them. The outer ones you might be able to break off carefully, but it may take a sterile`Exacto knife or good, pointed knife blade to get in and cut the center ones out. I would think there would be at least a stub of a central stem that these are attached to, so you may be able to remove them without damaging the pseudobulb too much.
If I am correct, it looks like you have 4 separate keikis emerging from where the bloom spike would have emerged. I have a few questions - Did it bloom first and then develop the babies, or did they just start emerging on their own? Also, was it recently stressed? Sometime that brings on odd self-preservation tactics like this.
Finally, do you know the name of it? You should have 4 duplicates of your parent plant when you are through. If there are two or three roots that are a couple of inches long, they should be able to sustain the plants, and as long as they are piggy-backing on the parent plant, they are sucking up nutrients and energy, so once they are big enough they really should "move out of the house". If you do remove them, they would do best in a smaller size bark mixture and go easy on the water for a week or two as the open wound area needs to 'heal' over some.
Best of Luck and keep us posted!
Looks super cool! Now go channel Mendel and self your plant to see if it's a genetic thing! Maybe start a new line of Catts that grow from both meristems! -mad scientist laugh-
Thanks for the all the advices. Stray59, to answer your questions. I don't know the name of this catt. I had it for 3 or 4 years and lost the tag when I repotted. I am generally pretty good about keeping the tags, but not sure how I lost the tag on this one. I just know that it is a mini catt. The babies came right out of the pseudobulb without any previous flowering. I don't believe that there has been any recent stress, I have had it in the same spot for a couple of years and there was no changes in the environment. I will try to carefully separate it over the weekend.
My sister has a (was) SLC. Jewel Box 'Scherezade' that has thrown a keiki just like this; didn't someone else on the board also recently have a Jewel Box that keikied?
As for my sister's plant, all of hers live by benign neglect, I don't know of its being unusually stressed before it threw the keiki, but it's not mine and I don't know. The keiki is doing fine, still attached where it sprouted and as big as a well grown older seedling now. I *think* but am not sure it was an older previously bloomed pbulb. I can't go check it now.
Jewel Box is a compact usually red catt; does that sound something like yours?
pipsxlch, mine is not red. It is orange on the outside with red in the middle. It is not in bloom now, so I don't have a picture. I removed the babies, it took awhile been very careful. There is not much of a stem between the parent psuedobulb and the keikis, and the stem was rather thick.
How to divide p-bulbs growing out of p-bulb
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