Catasetum Memoria Dorothy Wells seedling first bloom

[StephaneL]

@mopwr: Do you now know if it is a spike or a new growth? I'm curious to see yours when it blooms since I have seen pictures of fairly different siblings of this cross. Mine mainly takes after its Chuck Taylor parent. To help you wait (or maybe rub salt in your wounds), here are pictures of the second spike on mine.

[mopwr]

Originally Posted by StephaneL

@mopwr: Do you now know if it is a spike or a new growth? I'm curious to see yours when it blooms since I have seen pictures of fairly different siblings of this cross. Mine mainly takes after its Chuck Taylor parent. To help you wait (or maybe rub salt in your wounds), here are pictures of the second spike on mine.

Just checked and it's definitely a new growth, two new growths off of a single tiny bulb, it's kind of funny that it basically tripled in bulb count in one season (also that both bulbs are looking to be at least 5-6 times larger than the previous one - the first bulb is ~1" tall, the lead bulb is pushing 6" already).

---------- Post added at 08:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:34 AM ----------

One other funny observation in looking at your picture... My seedling has an almost identical bend that your bulb has. May be coincidence, but I thought it was odd since I grow under lights directly overhead and nothing else is arching like that.

[StephaneL]

@mopwr: In the case of mine, the bend in the pseudobulb is definitely related to light conditions. I grow my orchids in front of a window and usually rotate them every few days. I stopped rotating this one when the buds started developing so that they would present well, and this is when the pseudobulb started bending. I did the opposite with my other catasetum, we'll see the effect on the flowers...

[SouthPark]

The flowers are very nice ------ kind of like some Jkf. Appleblossom colours ....... or some Jkf. Appleblossum flowers have these colours. Beautiful.

[mopwr]

By the way, in looking at my plant here, I definitely have a new growth and not a flower spike. Is it possible that I got a new growth _instead_ of a flower spike? I thought these plants flowered off of young pseudobulbs and I'm not seeing any spikes yet. Makes me think this plant missed it's window to flower - unless it will bloom off of the secondary bulb it grew. Thinking I might not see this one this year, that's a shame.

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by mopwr

By the way, in looking at my plant here, I definitely have a new growth and not a flower spike. Is it possible that I got a new growth _instead_ of a flower spike? I thought these plants flowered off of young pseudobulbs and I'm not seeing any spikes yet. Makes me think this plant missed it's window to flower - unless it will bloom off of the secondary bulb it grew. Thinking I might not see this one this year, that's a shame.

It's very possible to get another growth this time of year (I've got some as well). Your plant might not be large enough to bloom but getting two growth squeezed into a single growing season gives your plant another opportunity to bloom before dormancy.