Wierd split liemianum pouch?

[krienschmidt]

What the heck?? My liemianum has this weird split pouch, I have never seen any lady slipper do this before. Does anyone have any idea what would cause this? The plant and flower seem fine otherwise, healthy. Thanks for any ideas!

[jkofferdahl]

Can you repost and get the picture set in?

[krienschmidt]

trying

---------- Post added at 04:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:46 PM ----------

Not the large picture I wanted but I seem to have an issue with pictures in this site! Duh.

[jkofferdahl]

It's there now. Unfortunately, I have utterly no idea what's going on with the flower. Hopefully a Paph person will answer.

[Paphluvr]

Well, it seems to have more issues than just the split pouch. Basically it just developed as a mutant flower. Has this plant bloomed before or is it a first bloom seedling? Since liemianum is a sequencial bloomer I would just wait and see what the next flower looks like. Chances are that it will be normal.

[Bohata]

Actually, I think you have what is a semidouble flower. This is the same kind of mutation that gives roses more than five petals.

[PaphMadMan]

This probably is not a mutation. There is no evidence yet that any genetic abnormality is involved.

Floral development is an extremely complex process and the remarkable thing is that it comes so close to perfect so often, not that it rarely messes up. Something (or nothing at all) triggered the meristem tissue that produced this flower to produce some extra flower parts and due to crowding none of them developed quite right. Certain environmental conditions, diseases, insect or physical damage, chemical exposure, cosmic rays, or a blue moon on the third Thursday of the month might increase the likelihood of a developmental problem, but none of them directly causes something like this. This would have started weeks or even months ago when the tissues that produced this flower were just the potential in a few dividing cells, so even trying to tie this to some kind of trigger is virtually impossible.

Most likely you will never see something like this again with this plant. Just possibly, you may have a plant that tends to mess up flowers once in a while, but it could be quite different in appearance another time.

[krienschmidt]

Oh my goodness, I just have a little freak on my hands! This is a first time bloomer but this is her 3rd sequential flower. First one just fine, second one had THREE divisions, now this one with two. Another bud and flower coming up behind. Will be interesting to see what pops up. Either way, gotta luv em, I'll keep it. Obviously it will not be winning any ribbons but HA, I have a one of a kind. Thanks all.

[Bulbopedilum]

Either your plant is semi peloric, your house is radioactive, or this is just so cool!!!

[estación seca]

Kewl