Phal first bloom double mutant.

[TomThumb]

Hi! I bought my first phals in spike and they've been so healthy and easy compared to my vanda seedlings. None of the initial order (of course I made another order of goals) bloomed yet but it's only been a month and the buds have all been growing. However one of them cracked open two weeks ago but never opened. After a week I carefully unstuck the sepals but it still didn't open so I left it alone. Since then it's very minutely opened a bit further so I was able to watch the inner portals turn from white to purple. And then I noticed it has two lips! ....I looked more closely and compared it to a blooming Phal I received this week and saw that it looked strange.


Here's a photo. I think it popped because of the excessive petals and it wasn't ready to bloom. Inside you can see two sets of central structures. I don't think it will continue producing mutants because this is its first bloom and it probably still needs to sort itself out but I'm curious to see how this bloom looks when it finally opens.

[SillyKeiki]

I really want to see than flower opened now!

[TomThumb]

Just a quick update because she finally bloomed. She's a lot darker than I expected and I can see why she popped early. This bloom has almost two sets of everything so she needed room inside the bud to develop. Even the flower stem on this bloom is twice as thick. I can imagine it takes a lot of energy for this bloom to open because it took her about three days to open slowly compared to the 1-2 days it takes for the normal buds to bloom on my other phals. Her other buds appear normal.

[Ray]

"Stuff" happens. You may never see that again.

[TomThumb]

Hi Ray,

Yes i'm aware that this is a one time thing. It's the first bloom for this phal and i've read that first blooms/first spikes can do some weird things. I just didnt expect to see it. Considering how much energy it seems to consume for the plant to bloom this thing i would much rather it have normal flowers and more energy left over for roots and leaves.. I've noticed the previously actively growing roots just stalled for now but it's still pushing out it's new leaf.

[Reeses]

That is a really bizarre and beautiful flower! Are there two pollen caps too?

[TomThumb]

Yes, there are two pollen caps. There is basically two of everything except the side sepal and petal on which they are connected. It looks like instead of them each having their own side sepal on that one side, they have a shared one that's pointing downward.

5 sepals,
2 petals
2 lips
2 columns/pollen caps.

[SillyKeiki]

I am a sucker for mutations. I love your weird mutated flower. Enjoy it, as it may never happen again, like Ray said. Silly stuff like this usually happens when an orchid first blooms.

if it turns out to be an stable mutation... wow.

AMAZING in any case!!!