Some of my peloric collection

[Ysa]

Phal. Brother Lancer



Phal. Baldan's Kaleidoscope 'Lycastanopsis'


Phal. Baldan's Kaleidoscope (Hauserman Candy x Daryl Lockhart)

[tuvoc]

Cool. I love pelorics.

Kim

[Connie Star]

I'm still confused as to what peloric means. I thought it meant that the petals are the same as the lip and different from the sepals?

[neb]

Peloric is when there is one or more line of symmetry that would not normally be there

[Connie Star]

Originally Posted by neb

Peloric is when there is one or more line of symmetry that would not normally be there

I'm still confused. I guess I'll just keep looking at pelorics until I figure it out.

[Orchidflowerchild]

sometimes the petals do not look exactly like the lip, but are sortof half petal, half lip. if you look at the edges of the petals on the third one, you can see hoe it is sortof forming the lobes the lip has.

-Cj

[Connie Star]

So, it's sort of the petals cupping around the lip? Is it a color or a form thing?

[hevnbown]

wow! Love the color mixture!

[Orchidflowerchild]

Originally Posted by Connie Star

So, it's sort of the petals cupping around the lip? Is it a color or a form thing?

Both. It's when the lateral petals take on lip characteristics (colour, shape, or both), or the lip takes on characteristics of the lateral petals, or rarely when the sepals take on lip-like or petal-like characteristics. The term covers a range of abnormalities of petal/lip structure wherein the flower loses it's bilateral symmetry and sortof reverts to a more lily/iris like radial symmetry.

THink of it this way: orchids are evolutionarily related to lilies, but have evolved one of the petals (there are exceptions) into a pollinator landing pad. It's not all that unusual that once in a while you get a plant where the stability of that gene is a touch dodgy. Now, some pelorics are stable and reliably produce flowers of some degree of pelorism, and sometimes you get a plant that will produce normal flowers, peloric flowers,and halfway betweens, sometimes even on the same spike.

Complex organisms with complex biology.

-Cj

[Ysa]

Originally Posted by Connie Star

I'm still confused as to what peloric means. I thought it meant that the petals are the same as the lip and different from the sepals?

found the following definitoin for peloric on the web:

Peloric - In orchids, a term used to describe an unusual & often beautiful (sometrimes grotesque) condition where all 3 petals (instead of just one)
attempt to fashion themselves in to lip colors &/or shapes.

In orchids the lip is a modified petal. When the 2 other petals (generally at ten o'clock & 2 o'clock) start showing characteristics of the lip (shape or color or both), the bloom is referred to a peloric.