Care for pollinated paph?
 

Hello! I'm new here. It seems one of my paphs got naturally pollinated by insects. I don't know what type of paph it is (I got it from family, no name tag) - it's the paph with the darker flower (circled yellow) in the picture.

Is there anything special I should/should not do to care for a paph that is successfully pollinated?

Thanks for your advice!

Xiel.

First, Welcome!

I'm not so sure that it is pollinated... that is the ovary of the flower, but if it is pollinated it would tend to be swelling more, and likely the flower (dried up) would stay attached instead of dropping. At this point, just watch to see what it does,.

Welcome!

It is extremely rare for Paphiopedilum to get pollinated by accident. It would require an insect of the right size falling into the pouch of another Paph first, and then depositing the pollen picked up there on the stigma of the second flower it falls into.

More commonly, the ovary just looks fresh for considerable time after the flower has withered.

If the flower was pollinated, you don't need to do anything special for the plant. The pod will take 300-400 days to mature, and then you will have seed with unknown heritage (though developed by a Maudiae type plant).

There is no value to trying to sow seed with unknown parents. If you have a Paph growing in spaghnum, you could sow in the pot, and you might get a few seedlings out of that.

howdy, and welcome to the ob!

i agree that it doesn't look pollinated. we have a couple similar paphs and as was mentioned they will often keep the embryo hanging there after the flower falls. we have had embryos sit there for up to six months. but it is not pollinated. if pollination occurs they will puff up (albeit very slowly) and will often turn green-ish.

if it were ours we would leave it as is, just for the visual appeal! then chop and toss. best of luck!