What the heck is going on? Roots growing from phal leaves?
 

I’m new to orchid growing (a little over a year) but I have amassed a pretty large collection of phal hybrids (over 40) and a fair number of cattleyas, dendrobiums, oncidiums, and a single vanda. I am a sucker for the clearance rack phals at big box stores, and the girl I’m confused about is one I rescued a few weeks ago.

She appears to be growing 2 new roots from the back of her newest leaf. I’m wondering if this might somehow be a keiki and the back side is functioning as the stem? Her second newest leaf, which i thought was dwarfed from stress, appears to be trying to grow roots from the surface(?!). There are new bumps on it and the leaf is bizarrely thick and turgid.

I have never seen anything like this in my year of rescuing, growing, killing, and researching orchids. She also has a couple new roots growing from lower down on her stem, so it doesn’t seem like she’s given up on typical root growing behavior. She had two spikes in bloom when I got her. I repotted her once they started looking droopy, and I cut one spike off but left the other, as she was not killing it off. The roots were in good shape and she had many of them. The leaf root was just barely noticeable then, but it has gotten bigger and there’s a second one emerging below it.

Has anyone seen this before? Can someone explain what this phal is doing? I haven’t been able to find anything like this in my research so far, and I’m baffled.

Welcome to the Orchid Board!

Those might be just bumps on the leaves. That happens sometimes.

One of my phals has a similar hook/bump/horn on the bottom of a leaf. Not as pronounced as that one, but now it’s just part of the leaf. Cells undergoing rapid replication (ie. in the growth point) can mutate, or in this case, differentiate into the wrong type of cell. The plants usually figure it out and the errant growth stops growing, but sometimes the wonky cells keep growing. That’s how crested growths occur on plants that aren’t typically crested, and how sports with new variegation emerge. I wouldn’t worry about it.