something weird on Phalaenopsis leaves
 

This recently appeared on one of my Phals leaves. What is this and what do I do?

Hello jneal10, welcome to the forum! Is the window that your phal is sitting in front of facing south? Is the sunlight shining directly onto your phal.'s leaves? Based on the pattern of whiteness it looks like sunburn. My phals also sit in front of my window but the windows are facing east and I have the blinds half way open.

Yes, looks like burn.

I just put it there to take good photos, it usually stays on the table further away from the window. But I sometimes do take my orchids to the garden to water and let them have some indirect sunlight (which did turn to direct sunlight a few times I wasn't careful). I thought it might be sunburn, but wanted to make sure it's not some kind of diseases. It was impossible to take a photo but one of the areas affected has a few white dots.

I'm not sure I can tell from the photos, but I didn't immediately think of burn.

Is it spreading?

It's not spreading, nothing is really happening to it. It is kind of bulging out, like if the top layer separated and a bubble formed. That's why I thought it was maybe a burn, but didn't want to risk it in case it wasn't. It kind of looks like a blister, it's empty inside and the top part is like thing skin. I checked the bottoms of the leaves and there is nothing there.

That sounds like an edema, I've had one on one of my orchids in the past.

It probably was full of liquid initially but has burst. You are right it's just like a blister.

I was told they can develop if the plant takes up more water than it can then cope with... the roots are doing their job a little too well :coverlaugh:

I don't think it's a problem unless an infection gets in after the blister bursts. On mine I put cinnamon on the inside after it burst. This dries it out and helps avoid infection.