HELP! Gelatinous masses on Bulbophyllum lobbii
 

This bulbophyllum has been outside in a screened in summer house. We’ve had a huge amount of rain so I covered the top with a tarp yesterday. It’s. It raining today but is windy, warm and humid. Nights in the mid 60’s-70°.

Today I sent out to check all of the orchids and found two gelatinous masses on the plant, both were between the newest growth and the one behind it. This is only my second bulbophyllum and I have no idea what going on. I have attached photos.

I honestly can’t tell you what exactly this is.

What I can tell you is that nearly every single one of my 50 or so Bulbos get this on developing growths after heavy rains, which about 5 months out the year for me. Never causes a single issue and I just gotta assume it’s just something natural that happens. Like a protective little jelly pouch

Well, I've noticed on some of my bulbos a sheath-like structure similar to Catts. but more skin-like rather than papery. This can get waterlogged and I remove these sheaths carefully before that happens. I've been known to be too aggressive and the entire new growth gets detached so lately I've left it alone. Got into this habit since I do it on my Catts. as I've found bugginess lodging themselves in the sheath. :waving

This is in between the last old growth and a new growth. Do you just leave it there? Does it dry up and go away?

Yes, I’ll have it in new growths or between the new growth and tge next one back. I personally leave it as I have found Bulbos tend to abort their growths very easily if messed with at all. And yep, dries up if it stops raining. If it doesn’t stop raining, the membrane surrounding the jelly stuff usually splits at some point as the growth hardens off.

I wonder what the white fibers are that show in photo 2.

Went outside and grabbed one of my plants where you can see this best on, this one is my Bulb. carunculatum. Pic 1, growth is almost complete, so should be fine, but I pulled back the membrane around the jelly and am holding one of the white fibers you are talking about. Pic 2 is what those white fibers turn into. Pic 3 is what the membrane and fibers look like if it just develops normally and I don’t get the jelly pouch. The outer membrane is really just a bulb sheath -edit: or rhyzome sheath- and those fibers are part of the structure the sheath. If you look at the base of the sheath you can see where that has started to come away as the bulb grew and see the fibers exposed.

It is intersting for sure. I was a bit dubious that an orchid could produce that much jelly in one single night though so I did some research and it seems the jelly does not just appear on bulbophyllum's.
For example:
Strange jelly like substance on seedling - TROPICAL LOOKING PLANTS - Other Than Palms - PalmTalk

Now if that is the case then it is not the plants producing this stuff but something depositing this stuff overnight.

From more research it seems to be an unsolved mystery but the most polular theory is that it is regurgitated frog spawn from a bird, most likely a heron.

Just quoting what I found on google as a possible explanation..

We don’t have frogs unfortunately because I love them. No herons. They’re in a wire summerhouse covered with a tarp right now.

I’m betting on the water but don’t understand it…Sara Jean thank you for the photos. It’s nice to know I share what I think is a strange phenomenon. I have a friend who teaches Botany in Phoenix now. Maybe he can find an answer since it’s relatively unknown here!

Thanks all.

And do share if he gets back to you! Im curious and the only not so educated guess I can come up with is that it’s just the cellulose absorbing water :dunno: