NOID Phal with Deformed Flower

[MrsH530]

Hi Everyone!

So I'm sure some of you saw my picture I posted a few weeks ago with my very first EVER rebloom! I'm still thrilled to death

I've now got 3 flowers opened with several more buds left to go! However, the latest one that just finished opening today, I noticed something odd. It has an extra petal! And then I noticed something really weird. It's total deformed.



Weird, huh?

[MattWoelfsen]

Yes, you have a plant with peloric flowers. I have several plants with similar development. Here is a couple of my own peloric flowered phals. I really like the look of your flower. Yours is very unique.

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[MrsH530]

Originally Posted by MattWoelfsen

Yes, you have a plant with peloric flowers. I have several plants with similar development. Here is a couple of my own peloric flowered phals. I really like the look of your flower. Yours is very unique.

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Yours are so beautiful! Wow!!

So why is only one of the flowers that way? The other two are shaped normally, like this:


Yet with the deformed one, it has an extra petal on the left and the part where the pollen is (sorry for not knowing the technical terms), is not formed correctly.

In the picture, it kind of looks like it's got another petal to open still, but its actually connected to the pollen part

[MattWoelfsen]

Usually if one flower is peloric then the subsequent blooms on that spike are the same. I noticed that the flower you displayed has ruffled petals, where the edge is jagged. That is the sign of being peloric. But if the second flower with the extra petal is completely different from the first one, that is a bit unusual. Next step is to wait for a third bud to open to see if it will look like the first flower or the second flower.

I did some research on this peloric flower. According what I've read, the plant's flowers will always be peloric but if you were to breed for this condition, seedlings would not be peloric. It is unique to the plant. There is something about the plant's development that produced this result but the condition does not alter its genes.

That is my understanding. I hope someone else can explain further this condition or correct me if I'm wrong.

[RosieC]

I'm not sure this is peloic, which is a specific mutation where the petals start to mimic the lip.

A phal flower has 3 sepals, 2 petals and 1 lip. The lip is a modified petal (the sepals are the outer casing of the bud, in orchids those make part of the flower as well, while in other flowers they often just dry up behind the flower).

A peloric orchid is when the petals start to take on characteristics of the lip. In the most extreme cases you end up with a flower with 3 lips and 3 sepals, but most just have different shaping in the petals as Matt's pictures show.

However while I wouldn't call this a peloric mutation, it is a mutation of the flower. I get them sometimes on odd flowers. I think it's just like any mutation in nature... they happen sometimes, sometimes influenced by enviroment, and other external factors.

With peloric it can sometimes be a stable mutation which will happen every time it flowers, or it can sometimes be a mutation that only happens once.

[MrsH530]

Thanks for the information, Rosie!

Based on your explanation, I don't have a peloric flower. I only have 1 lip. It seems that this flower's mutation is 1 extra petal, plus a partially formed petal that is fused with the column, giving it that twisted look.

My two other open blooms look fine, with no mutation. Only time will tell what the rest of the blooms look like when the open They're all opening rather slowly, taking the grand ol' time.

I just thought it was interesting in any case. I'm not really worried about it. I'm over the moon about getting my first rebloom, anyway