Cattleya labiata freak flower!
 

The summer was scorching hot this year. In fact it was record-breaking, with highs reaching almost 40 degrees C, with night temperatures of 30 degrees C, continuing two months straight. Many plants suffered, and some plants developed defective flowers. This Cat. labiata var. semialba ('Si Bueno' x '#3') is one of the such unfortunate victims.

http://i1186.photobucket.com/albums/...psyqchsvei.jpg

It has seven total tepals instead of six, and left lateral petal has turned into a lip-like structure, with anther cap-like callus on its tip. The column is bizarrely narrow and malformed, and there are two lips attached to the column. It is so bizarre that almost look like a modern art masterpiece.

And now some meteorologists are warning that there might be a record breaking cold snap in the winter. Oh, please no....

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I never see temperatures do this. Perhaps you are using hormones in fertilizers? Or insecticides during flower formation? It's usually caused by chemicals during bud formation or genetically defective.


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I've seen high temps do this to my Catts here in Texas. However, it seems a bit late for such occurrences!

@Leslie,
No, I don't use hormones, just plain Hyponex liquid media diluted to about 1:2000 or so...and I haven't used insecticide on this one except spraying with diluted home-made cinnamon extract. :)

In fact, I have read some scientific papers which point out that heat stress during floral development can cause disfigured flower structures, so I guess that is it. Also, my Den. christyanum had developed weird looking flower in this summer, which had been flowering just fine. Anyway, the night temperature appears to be major factor in normal plant development, and it had to endure months of uncomfortably hot and humid night in this summer...

---------- Post added at 01:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:31 PM ----------

@isurus79:
Yes, it is bit late. But the sheath began to emerge in early summer, stayed there about a month, and finally a bud began to emerge when the night temperature cooled down in September. Maybe the nascent, pre-bud formed during hot days and got damaged by high temperature?

Hope the next set of blooms will normalize in fall (the normal bloom time).


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It's so disappointing when you wait so long for a bloom just to have it come out abby normal.

I may be trying to revive a dead thread, but I thought it was worth asking if the flowers turned up normal in the following blooming.
There is a Ching Hua orchids source for it and I am contemplating weather to buy it or not. I already had a tipo labiata bloom with distorted flowers that originated somewhere in Asia, where I am very skeptical to buy from (virused plants, mericlones made from weak subsequent mericlones etc.). Should I keep throwing away my money there or is South America a better option?