Cambria hybrid with purple spots on three of its leaves

[rbarata]

the worst one is pictured here.

In my oppinion it's the best one. Your cambria must have, probably, red or purple (or between) flowers.
The key word here is: Anthocyanin.
Wikipedia provides a good explanation about it.

In case of a cambria it means your giving it too much light, I think, because anthocyanin high concentration prevents red wavelengths to be absorbed. Thus, they are reflected, that's why we see the red colour in leaves and flowers. Basically, anthocyanins are a natural sunscreen in the botanical world. Their production in the cells is stimulated by high light intensity.

[herrjanermeister]

Oh, I see. It may not be so bad then. I will read the wikipedia article as soon as I have time, either tonight or tomorrow. It may be that it had a bit too much light then, in the store I bought it from today, or from being outside in the sun for a few hours afterwards when I removed it from the plastic pot from the store into a glass one with drainage. I didn't look too closely at all the leaves when I bought it. It now rests on my windowsill where there is less light, but still some sunlight every day. So if it's as you think, should the spots dissapear in a few days if it now gets less direct sunlight? I also watered it a little, with fertilizer. Only a little water, and with fertilizer for orchids. It was very dry when I bought it. I understand they don't need much water, so I watered very sparingly.

Edit: The flowers are yellow and a rusty red or purple. I added a picture.

[NYCorchidman]

Originally Posted by rbarata

In my oppinion it's the best one. Your cambria must have, probably, red or purple (or between) flowers.
The key word here is: Anthocyanin.
Wikipedia provides a good explanation about it.

In case of a cambria it means your giving it too much light, I think, because anthocyanin high concentration prevents red wavelengths to be absorbed. Thus, they are reflected, that's why we see the red colour in leaves and flowers. Basically, anthocyanins are a natural sunscreen in the botanical world. Their production in the cells is stimulated by high light intensity.

Actually, that has nothing to do with light level nor anthocyanin.

Notice how they start out with yellow and then turn brown in the center, and then the whole thing turns black. These are called necrotic spots.

Many of these Oncidium Intergeneric hybrids tend to exhibit this symptoms.
I have read some perplexing stuff about them, from harmless "Oncidium thing" to pathogenic in origin like fungal and viral. I think it is more like case by case and it just is nearly impossible to tell by just visual inspection.

I stopped growing certain Oncidium hybrids that gets spotty easily. It just grossed me out and took the fun of the hobby out of it, so I said bye. much happier since!

Last, for the practical note, I don't think these spots generally jump on other plants easily. At least I haven't seen it going around in my collection in the past. but then I only had the spotted ones for just a little while and got rid of them all, though. didn't want to take a chance.