My current slipper list and a question

[The Orchid Boy]

Heres my list of slipper orchids:

Paphiopedilum
delenatii
delenatii v. album
delenatii v. dunkel (died, replacement coming soon)
sanderianum- should spike soon
gratrixianum
bellatulum
urbanianum
x39 liemianum- large, fast growing compots from flask
x2 Magical Venus
Wossner Kolosuk v. album

Phragmipedium
pearcei- in spike

Cypripedium
x3 reginae
x3 pubescens

Wish List
Mex. xertophyticum
Paph. rothschildianum
Paph. armeniacum
Paph. micranthum
Paph. malipoense
Paph. emersonii
Paph. hangianum

My question
My question is about my 2 Paph. Magical Venus. They only get two mature leaves per growth before they bloom. They get 2 secondary leaves that are tiny, but only 2 big, normal sized leaves. All my other paphs get 4-6 normal sized leaves per growth. Is this just a trait of all maudiae type hybrids, or maybe just a few? NYCorchidman, you have a lot of these types of hybrids, how do yours grow? These 2 bloom a lot, like every 2-3 months.

[Discus]

I have had two maudiae types (Paphiopedilum Onyx), and they produce loads of leaves on each "fan" before flowering; mine do so about once a year on whatever growths are mature. I gave one of them away about a year ago, the other one has re-bloomed, again on an almost absurdly long spike, but it looks pretty epic, and the flowers last and last.

I feel blooming on more leaves would leave the plant "stronger" (more fuel!), but if yours seems happy, I wouldn't worry about it too much, as long as it keeps growing and looking strong! Of course, the old growth leaves hang around for a while anyway after blooming, so the plant should be getting stronger with time anyway.

[The Mutant]

I think that's a trait of your Magical Venuses. I have three Maudiae types and one (should) get around six normal sized leaves per growth before blooming, the second one seems to be similar to yours (one-two tiny leaves, one-two normal sized ones), and the last one is still a single growth plant and working on its sixth leaf, all normal sized, on said growth (it has still to bloom). So, it seems to vary from Paph to Paph.

[NYCorchidman]

It is very much normal.
As long as plants continue to grow and bloom well, there is nothing wrong with it.

I thinkg number of leaves has to do with multiple factors like breeding background, individual plant growing habits, plant size and growing environment.

My very first album maudiae (very loose term here as we know it) has an average of 3-4 leaves per growth when mature. This particular plant blooms twice a year. At times, a fan would mature with only two leaves and send up a spike.
I divided this plant in half leaving 3 or 4 fans each. One half (with a leading growing end) flowered as usual but was given away to someone. The other half without any leading growing end, skipped one year before flowering again. but it sprouted two fans, which is exciting because this plant always made one new fan each time. Now I get to see more flowers more often.
By the way, while it was bouncing back in that one year, each of the two fans grew more leaves than the plant ever had before. 7 leaves. hence taking longer before flowering again. now things are on schedule again.
My guess is that it needed more energy. This "old" half had literally old fans, which dried up and died, so plant had to make lots more leaves to make up for the loss.

Now, I also have other maudiae, one particular vini, makes about 4 leaves each time, but last time it flowered, that flowering fan had only two leaves.

I think this happens more often on the plants that flower "frequently".

Other maudiae I have that flower about once a year tend to make lots of leaves like 7 or more, hence taking a long time before a spike emerge.
These tend to have uniform and expected leaf size.

The ones that flower more often have leaf number and size quite variable I find. sometime big, sometimes not so big. but every time when it is time, they flower regardless of the leaf or overall fan size.