Hello!! New species nut from Chicago here :) Little black growths on scaphosepalum
 

First time posting! I recently purchased two scaposeptalums from Andy's bare root sale. They are mounted, in my bathroom, (with my masdevallias) which has low but bright light, high humidity, good airflow and is on the cooler side. Probably 70F during the day, and about 60-65F at night. I bathe them all in large pots twice a week, and spritz when needed the rest of the time. Today, I noticed these little black "knobs" or growths at the base of my scaphosepalum. Any idea what they are? When I googled, I found nothing, and no pictures with them. Any input would be appreciated! I have about 30 orchids, but It is my first time growing this species so please be forgiving if this is an obvious growth habit ☺️

Welcome to the Orchid Board!

I wonder whether those might be fungus? I don't think they're harming the plant.

Now that I can see it on my desktop rather than a phone screen, I agree they look like flower spikes that aborted and turned black.

The pic looks a bit grainy but my first thought is that those could be spike starts. And, either you're going to have dark flowers or they died off for some reason.

I haven't grown scaphosepalum in several years so my memory on spikes starts is a bit fuzzy but I think the spikes elongated more before developing buds...but maybe something went awry and those are developing on small spikes.

What species/hybrid is yours? That might help.

I'm with Katrina. These may be developing or aborted spikes, and knowing the species (there are very few if any hybrids within the genus) might be helpful. Are they definitely new or just not noticed before?

Thanks for the information. It's a scaphosepalum cimex and this morning they were all dried up and crumbly. (Just the black knobs, the rest is fine) I'm just going to assume since they were shipped bare root, and are only 2 weeks into new surroundings that it's due to a little bit of shock. I also went to Hauserman's orchids today and took my light meter with to measure the light in the masdevallia house, and it's very similar to my bathroom and I have read scaph's like the same lighting so I'm going to stop worrying about them (who, me?)

---------- Post added at 02:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:42 PM ----------


Thank you! Yes, I was wondering if they were an entirely separate entity. They are gone, so I guess I'll never know!

Welcome Kristaz! Dolly and our family live just east of you in Michigan City!

Thank you! I love Michigan City! We go camping around there all all over IN. 😊

So I just received this response from Andy's orchids (how kind of him to reply to my email) :
It is older moss with algae growing on it that is imbedded amongst the roots
and stems. Need not worry.
Andy

He is kind.