Do cattleyas flower from new or old growth?

[greengarden]

When visiting my mum down south recently she took me to check out her uncles place. He's a avid orchid collector too and had some really interesting things. I commented off hand about a mount that was up on the back fence in the corner looking pretty sad and he said that it looked pretty far gone and he would probably just bin it. Nah, it's not that bad I said and he promptly handed it to me and told me if I wanted it I could have it.

It was looking a little bit sunburnt but I've brought things back that were much worse and after about a month it is now covered in new leads and looking well on it's way to making a roaring recovery! He told me it was a mini catt but I have no other info on it's possible ID until it flowers as the tag had faded. So my qurestion is, if I can mange to get it flowering this year will it be off the old growth or the squillion new leads?

[katrina]

It'll most likely be off your "squillion" new leads only...probably. Confused?

Catts only bloom once per growth but if it hasn't bloomed in years it's possible it could bloom on those older but non-bloomed growths. However, the most common thing would be for it to bloom only on the latest year's growths.

Sounds like it's on it's way to a full recovery...it'll be fun and interesting for you as you wait to see what it's going to do.

[tucker85]

Like Katrina said, cattleya pseudobulbs only bloom once. It's the newest pseudobulbs that bloom. Many cattleyas only bloom on the very last pseudobulb of the year. In other words, if each lead grew two pseudobulbs this year, only the very last one on each lead would bloom. Some cattleyas bloom on almost every new pseudobulb for that year, not just the last one. You can usually tell how it will bloom by looking at the old pseudobulbs. If every pseudobulb has an old dried up flower spike, then it will bloom from every new pseudobulb. If only half or less of the pseudobulbs have dried up spikes it will probably only bloom on the very last pseudobulb of each lead.

[greengarden]

Thanks guys, I can't see any old flower spikes at all so it will truly be a mystery. It is quite a large mount for a mini so if it flowers well it will be an amazing sight, it has about 3 dozen mature growths and every time I look I find a new lead popping up, I think it's enjoying its new cruisey life under my patio and the regular dosing with seaweed extract it's been getting