How prone to basal growths is phal. schilleriana?

[msarro]

A few weeks ago I ordered what was supposed to be 3 phal. schillerianas in a community pot. I have been tracking that in this thread:

I just purchased a phalaenopsis schilleriana with 2 keikis. Help!

Well, I finally worked up the nerve to repot and potentially split the pot up. Imagine my surprise to find that every single stem appears to fuse into a single mass, from which all of the roots are descending.

This is markedly different from my phal hybrids that I'm used to.

Here's a photo:



So, what I am trying to understand is what I might be looking at in that photo. Is that multiple plants so tightly bound together they appear like a single plant? Does that appear to be a single plant that's extremely prone to shooting off basal growths?

I didn't press my luck, so I kept everything together, cleaned off the old media to the best of my ability, and repotted it. I'd still like to understand better what is actually going on since it's all so tightly bound I can't really tell what I'm looking at.

Any thoughts?

[camille1585]

That looks like a single plant to me, all the roots seems to come from one central point. I don't think you'll even know for sure, but in any case it will be quite a show in the future when all those growth bloom!

[msarro]

Originally Posted by camille1585

That looks like a single plant to me, all the roots seems to come from one central point. I don't think you'll even know for sure, but in any case it will be quite a show in the future when all those growth bloom!

I am quite excited to see how it turns out when it gets a little bit bigger! It's still a bit too small for blooming based on most of the pictures I've seen, but it definitely makes me feel like I got my money's worth with the purchase!

Now hopefully it doesn't mind the repotting too much!

[camille1585]

With good care, it might actually bloom within the coming year. A lot of Phals reach blooming size when still relatively small and immature looking. I think my schilleriana was only slightly larger than your largest plant in that clump when it bloomed for the first time. There were only 3-4 flowers on the spike, but it was still a nice surprise!

[Mr.Fakename]

It's likely that this is the same plant, and some stressful event like a crown injury led it to grow several basal shoots.

If you were to push light levels to get those root tips to be red, it wouldn't be surprising to see a spike this spring.