Mutated flower on my Phalaenopsis complex hybrid
 

Hello, fellow orchid enthusiasts!

Today I bring you a curiosity. An interesting case of a mutated flower.

This is one of my market-bought complex hybrid Phalaenopsis. On the first picture you can see how the normal flowers should look like:

https://66.media.tumblr.com/34fa38ec...019o1_1280.jpg

And, on this second pic, you can see this year's first bloom:

https://66.media.tumblr.com/43510602...019o2_1280.jpg

Let's take a moment to analise this mutation. Regular Phalaenopsis flowers have:

- 3 sepals
- 3 petals, one of which is highly specialised and transformed into what we call labellum

This mutated flower has instead:

- 1 normal sepal, and the 2 lower sepals are fused together
- the labellum is missing completely
- the 2 remaining petals have inherited the treats of the labellum, but only half petal each, making them half-peloric. Please note they both have only half of the callus as well.

I am now very interested in flower development in orchids, because I also saw a case recently of a Paphiopedilum American Hybrid which had a split sinsepal (they normally have fused lower sepals). And my Phal got a mutation that did exactly this, so it must be a similar gene.

Can somebody recommend a good read on orchid flower development, specially the mechanisms of diferentiation and genetics?

Mutations happen, and are rarely repeated. If they are, the plant will often end up in the trash.

Split paph synsepals also occur from time to time - and then be back to normal on the next flowering.

I doubt there is ANY genetic info out there that will help you understand it better.

A mutation is a shift (change), which is permanent and stable.

Some mutations are stable & permanent, but not necessarily compatible with different stable mutations.

Other mutations are semi-permanent. For example, a plant with peloric flowers might have 80% peloric and 20% non-peloric flowers on the same spike.

I purchased several seedlings of a speculative Cymbidium cross (100% petal peloric x 100% sepal peloric). Just bloomed the first plant, with all non-peloric flowers.

This means that while each peloric type is stable, the two types of peloric flowers are not compatible. Thus, they 'wipe each other out' in the offspring.

So... here are a few more pictures of the following flowers...

- right petal missing, left petal crumpled and wrinkly, lip almost normal:
https://66.media.tumblr.com/6db463e1...019o2_1280.jpg

- one lip and a half lip, double column (4 polinias):
https://66.media.tumblr.com/cd821f8a...019o4_1280.jpg

- what is this even:
https://66.media.tumblr.com/e342100a...019o3_1280.jpg

BTW, this is a picture of the plant. It looks as if the leaves spin the crown axis 90 degrees each new couple of leaves:

https://66.media.tumblr.com/d9eb50dd...019o5_1280.jpg

That's really cool. My guess would be there are structures and hormones within the plant cells that influence cell division and development and there is a mutation that messes up the arrangement of leaves and flowers.