Identifying NOID Blossoms
 

I purchase clearance plants at Lowes that look like they have a chance at surviving. While accumulating a nice collection of rescues, I noticed that the stems have different colors. Some are solid green, and some have red/maroon coloring. My question is directed to those who have a large collection.

Is it possible to figure out the color of the blossoms by looking at the stems?

My original thought was a total green stem would indicate pure white petals. A stem with some sort of red or maroon markings would indicate something with red in the petals.

I have a few rescues that are sending out new shoots on old spikes so I am wondering if my theory is right. I'll know in a few weeks. :biggrin:

Usually the ones that take on some red or purple do have flowers with purple or pink in them. The green ones could have white or yellow flowers. If the plants are getting too much sun, they can also get a bit of red tinge on the leaves and spikes, but you can likely count on some form of pink/purple from the darker stems! Nice surprises to look forward to!

Hmm. I would like to see if other members agree with that. Would be nice if they would check and post what they have. Hint, hint. lol. I'm partial to the solid color blossoms and the bigger the better. lol.

I would say the same from what I've seen. Red stems tend to have darker red/purple flowers, green stems tend to have paler while/yellow flowers.

However I have one with VERY dark red stems which has white flowers stripped in purple. (It looks like this one - Orchid of the Week Library: Dtps. Minho Princess 'Watercolor Artist' HCC/AOS)

That's beautiful. I would love to have one of those one day.

Plants of this kind with truly white or yellow flowers lack certain pigments and if they lack them in the flowers then they lack them in the plant also, and so the plant will be all green, leaves stems, etc.

Agreed Ron, and to put it the other way arround, the presence of the pigments for the flowers can show up in stems and leaves as well as just the flowers.

My example one, while a white flower has the purple pigment for the purple pattening on the flower. The slight oddity is that it has such little colour in the flower but shows it strongler than all my others in the stem... although maybe that's NOT odd, maybe the stem is holding back a lot of the pigment and less of it gets to the flower... :dunno: