Brassavola nodosa double leaf

[FL_Orchid_Collector]

On a B. nodosa the third-youngest growth had a second leaf grow out of a pseudobulb with a well-advanced leaf:


The second-youngest growth has what I'm sure is the start of its first flower spike, at least for that division:



I haven't found any cut spikes on it. The youngest growth has a swollen tip of the sheath, like the one directly above looked a few weeks ago.

I haven't found any websites about bifoliate B. nodosa growths, and I've found enough baloney on the net to not trust most articles anyway, and I don't have legal access to most journals anymore so I've just had to come up with my own theory of why this happened:

The plant had enough resources to try to start blooming, so it gave a signal to put some meristem at the sheath tip of that third-youngest growth. It did, and it made the callus/protocorm equivalent if that makes sense, but the spike development hormone wasn't abundant enough yet to quite get it to work, so it mostly became the most basal organ, the leaf. Then on the next growth, with that nice pink-tipped soon-to-be-spike above, it got the meristem expansion signal with enough spike initiation hormone to turn it into the proto-spike. This could explain the rosy tinge around that skinny little leaf in the upper photo.

Is this close? Does anyone have special knowledge on this phenomenon and can shed some light?

[Ray]

Sh*t happens?

[RJSquirrel]

thinking like an orchid...

" I am growing so well I am not going to stop this and make a flower"

[FL_Orchid_Collector]

Oh and that wasn't a flower spike either. Silly plants, wasting so much energy on a sheath that's just going to split and dry when the leaf expands and unfolds. They should quit doing that, and the fact that their tricking me is irritating has nothing to do with it, I'm only looking out for them