weird striped Miltonopsis blossoms

[quiltingwacko]

Anyone know what causes this? A couple blossoms on my Red Tide Miltoniopsis have these weird lavendar stripes. It gets both natural and artificial light. Carol

[quiltergal]

I hate to say it but it looks like it may be a color break virus. I would quarantine it for the time being until you get some more opinions.

[camille1585]

Virus is certainly a possibility but to me it also reminds me of something I saw in one of my plant breeding courses. It looks like the result of a transposon induced mutation. Transposons are also called 'jumping genes', because they have the ability to jump from one part of the genome to another. That's all they do basically, and don't seem to have any other function other that replicating and 'jumping' If the transposon lands in the middle of the genome segment coding for flower pigments, and is in the right cell layer, then pigment synthesis is disabled in certain parts of the bloom and the result is what you see on your bloom.
If the mutation occured late (when bud is about to form), then usually only one bloom is affected. If the mutation occurs earlier in the growth of the plant, you will see the same thing, in varying degrees, on other blooms. But like I said, this is just another possibility!

Here's an example of this in Ipomea (top line of pics only), were transposon mutants are common. Scroll about halfway down to the paragraph on 'Endogenous Transposons with High Displacement Activity' to see it
Ipomea transposon mutants

[quiltingwacko]

Hmmmm. Thanks. I may have a color disabled teenage mutant ninja chid on my hands. Tsk. Or failing that, if a color break virus, I will have four psychedelic Miltoniopsis. The affected plant is sitting in a tray with four other Milts soaking in water. I will go console myself by drinking coffee with Gary's new orchids. Thanks much. I was sure it was light related. Carol

[Des]

Without testing you cant be sure it is virus ,The bud could have been damaged at a critical stage of its development. Either have the plant tested for virus or wait for its next flowering to see if the color break is repeated.
I have often found that deformaties are never again repeated

[Phantasm]

This doesn't look like virus to me, and I would write it off as a messed up blooming. Next time around it will probably not be there. I do find it interesting, and it appears that the top layer of pigment has been peeled away on the involved segments.

[Jorch]

Looks genetic to me! color-breaks caused by virus don't look like that.

good luck on the next blooming!

[Zoi2]

I like the unusual and it is striking.
Joann

[Angurek]

I think the two-tone on some of the petals looks interesting, but if it is a virus, I think you should quarantine the plant to keep the rest of your collection from getting infected.