Mtssa. Fitch "Izumi" retaining spikes? - Orchid Board

itcameinwaves · #1 01-17-2017, 09:54 AM

Hi y'all (I'm just learning to say y'all, I hope it seemed natural)!

My Miltassia dropped the last of its flowers a couple of weeks ago but the spikes are still beautiful. The other times it blossomed, the spikes dried up very soon afterwards. I'm not quite sure what its doing and how I should respond. The shorter one is quite bizarre in that the lower portion of the stem is rather swollen and the leaves are substantial.

I would very much love your thoughts on these matters!

-danielle

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MrHappyRotter · #2 01-17-2017, 10:15 AM

It would appear that the flower spike developed into a new psuedobulb & vegetative growth. Hard to say why, but maybe there was something in your care/culture this year and it got very confused.

But you are right, normally spikes will dry up and die off after flowering so long as none of the flowers were fertilized. This is pretty unusual, though sometimes these intergeneric oncidiums do weird things. I've seen them produce new growths from the top of their psuedobulbs before, which is out of the ordinary. And I've seen them produce a new growth that ended up developing into a spike, which is kind of the opposite of what seems to have happened with your plant.

I doubt this will cause any harm to the plant, so you can leave it if you'd like. I'd probably remove it, though, since it's so much taller than the other growths and doesn't really fit in.

PaphMadMan · #3 01-17-2017, 10:54 AM

There no need to remove them, but no harm if you want too. As long as there is healthy green tissue, especially with the small leaves, it is helping to provide energy to the plant. If it was my plant I'd keep the spikes and try to produce some keikis, just for fun.

As to why it would happen, it could just be chance. No developmental process in a living thing is 100% accurate. It might have been promoted by an odd environmental condition on one day when the spike was at a critical point in development, even herbicide use in your neighborhood. As far as anything you might have done to cause it, use of a hormone containing product like KelpMax or SuperThrive early in spike development, probably before spikes were even visible, is probably the most likely. If that doesn't apply it probably wasn't you.

itcameinwaves · #4 01-17-2017, 10:54 AM

Thank you for your response! I suspect it may have been a confusing summer for many in this home this year.

I suspected it was behaving oddly because of its man-made heritage, but I am surely stumbling blindly in this orchid collection, so I decided it would be best to ask the experts!

I bashfully admit that I find its insistence on forging its own path endearing and I am curious about what will come of this! Perhaps I will send you a small offspring in the future. 😉

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Roberta · #5 01-17-2017, 04:14 PM

I am inclined to leave anything that is green in place. In time, the orchid will absorb energy and nutrients from an old spike/growth and it will wither at that point. It's one of the ways that orchids are extremely efficient. Unless it somehow "bothers" you, I'd let the orchid "recycle" the spike before cutting it.

jkofferdahl · #6 01-17-2017, 05:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by itcameinwaves

Hi y'all (I'm just learning to say y'all, I hope it seemed natural)!

-danielle

Hi Danielle - I have a niece here in Georgia named Danielle who is as pretty as any orchid I've ever seen.

I can't address things with your orchid, which is a genus I've not grown. Others here will certainly weigh in with excellent advice. We'll both learn from their posts!

Regarding the use of "y'all", down here in Georgia I think we know a bit about the term. We say "Y'all" with a drawl! (It sounds like "yawl"). To get it just right you have to kind of roll your lower jaw just as you get to the "l" in the enunciation. Now, you did well enough but to say it properly you can't use a Yankee word like "Hi" to precede it. It's gotta be, "Hey, y'all!". Of course, a good Southerner also observes proper etiquette, and so must always remember to include polite generalities. So to really be a fine Southerner, one would say, "Hey, y'all. How's your Mom 'an all them?" Really, I think it's kind of the Southern equivalent of Boston's, "How ya doin'?", and the proper response, likewise, is, "Hey! How's your Mama been?" Greetings out of the way, of course, it's okay to offer cornbread and Mint Juleps - or straight bourbon if amongst only gentlemen.

Yes, I DO love being a Southerner!

itcameinwaves · #7 01-17-2017, 07:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roberta

I am inclined to leave anything that is green in place. In time, the orchid will absorb energy and nutrients from an old spike/growth and it will wither at that point. It's one of the ways that orchids are extremely efficient. Unless it somehow "bothers" you, I'd let the orchid "recycle" the spike before cutting it.

Thanks, Roberta! It sounds as if we have similar philosophies concerning orchids. I'm sure my lovely plant is far more wise than me. I wanted to be sure I wasn't draining her energy by leaving them in place, but I failed to consider the photosynthetic properties of them. I find them quite beautiful even! I believe I will let her be her unique, wild, quirky self for now and see what she has next to show me.

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itcameinwaves · #8 01-17-2017, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jkofferdahl

Hi Danielle - I have a niece here in Georgia named Danielle who is as pretty as any orchid I've ever seen.

I can't address things with your orchid, which is a genus I've not grown. Others here will certainly weigh in with excellent advice. We'll both learn from their posts!

Regarding the use of "y'all", down here in Georgia I think we know a bit about the term. We say "Y'all" with a drawl! (It sounds like "yawl"). To get it just right you have to kind of roll your lower jaw just as you get to the "l" in the enunciation. Now, you did well enough but to say it properly you can't use a Yankee word like "Hi" to precede it. It's gotta be, "Hey, y'all!". Of course, a good Southerner also observes proper etiquette, and so must always remember to include polite generalities. So to really be a fine Southerner, one would say, "Hey, y'all. How's your Mom 'an all them?" Really, I think it's kind of the Southern equivalent of Boston's, "How ya doin'?", and the proper response, likewise, is, "Hey! How's your Mama been?" Greetings out of the way, of course, it's okay to offer cornbread and Mint Juleps - or straight bourbon if amongst only gentlemen.

Yes, I DO love being a Southerner!

This is so funny! I was born in Nashville, but my family returned to France shortly after I was born so I mostly learned English at school. My mother only spoke English infrequently and she is from Chicago so I missed the nuances of the language of my birth city on all accounts. I'll have to add this clever detail to my repertoire!

It's very funny that you mention bourbon - in Normandie, people look at you with blank eyes if you say something about Tennessee until you say that it is the place where Jack Daniels is made! We love Jack Daniels so much that the first time I saw someone put Coke and ice in it I was perfectly horrified and saddened. 😂 In Normandie, we have a type of liquor made from apples that grow only in the region that is gaining a bit of fame here called Calvados. Sometimes when I will tell a person that I grew up in Calvados, Normandie, they recognize the place from the drink! Strange that both of my homelands are recognized by alcohol! The last bit of anecdote about my heritage; they say something is "as American as Apple pie." In Normandie, one of our specialities is an apple pie, made with our regional apples, covered with a bit of Calvados (the liquor) and set on fire. I'm trying to think of a clever turn of phrase to unite the two, but I can't right now, but it would be something like being an American and Norman apple pie.

Silly things abound

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