I finally got around to "gimp-ing" these pics for upload. This shot shows the remains of the very dead looking sheath that produced the very nice flowers that follow. The color is off slightly from what I expected since the emerging buds were so dark red. Every single crispy brown sheath that I had written off as gone is now producing these lovely flowers. Several new growths have green sheaths starting that I now fully expect to turn brown like these did. I am telling you that these were brown, dried and crispy, and looked completely empty when transilluminated. Sadly though beautiful these flowers lack the sweet fragrance of the Potinara that it turns out is not visible in the background of this flower picture. I had to add the picture of my Den atroviolaceum because the flowers are so full of spotted coolness, though it is admittedly off topic as it has no sheaths. This last picture is of a present I thought I did not want, but got anyway and am now glad I did. The same thoughtful daughter that gave me the plant for father's day gave me the feline for Christmas. He is known as Yoda, so named because he has the oddest ability to fold his ears back and make his eyes all squinty when his head is rubbed which makes him look exactly like the movie character of the same name. He also terrorizes the Cymbidiums that live closest to the ground and this weekend tipped over an Onc. that was on it's way to the "Kevin bin". For some reason the leaves seemed to be taunting him and he went at the plant in earnest. I think that he fancies himself to be a real tiger. On an up note, immediately following the Oncidium Cat-astrophy, Yoda was entertained by one bit of bark from that pot for what seemed like several hours which allowed me to leave my guard post and finish some potting and watering. Ending lesson for me: I will never again give up on a brown sheath.

"How do you trigger the growth program?" You don't need to trigger it. Plant schedule is programmed genetically. Just follow it. The thing is not to interfere crudely, like keeping catt dry and hungry when it's trying to grow or keeping it soaked when it's trying to bloom. Just look at your plant and try to understand what it wants. There are, of course, growth and rooting hormones in every garden department, instractions attached. I know guys who like to experiment on their orchids: "What are they going to do if I do that?" I never liked that really. Though you can move plant schedule a bit of course. Commercial growers do it all the time. I am only making first steps in that direction. When I wanted to postpone one my catt's bloom I moved it inside the house into cool, dry, A/C-ed air and reduced watering. New growths stalled. After a month I took it back outside into our hot and humid FL summer, it started to grow again and I bought a month delay. Another time I cut off blooms on second catt and started high N fert. It started to grow immediately , bulbs matured earler and I got blooms earler. Maybe someone with more experience can tell you more about that.

If you have good roots, the leaf will rehydrate. If you have lost the roots, no it won't. Even if you have lost all roots, the next new growth will have roots. Did the sheath have buds in it? If no buds and just the dry black sheath, you could still get blooms. My Chia Lin just opened it's first blooms today and the other sheath isn't even close to being ready to open. Some sheaths do turn black and still bloom, some turn a dry tan color and then bloom and some bloom while the sheath is still green. Brooke

Disclaimer - I am not an expert. I've had them growing in my garden for 20 years but only recently started getting interested in growing from seed or some of the non-hybrid varieties. My understanding is that the color can be determined by the color of the BERRY that appear on the stalk after the blooms have fallen and have from 1 to 20 seeds in each berry. Once the seeds are extracted, you can't tell what color the berry was by looking at the seed. The berries take several months to ripen. My berries have all been bright red and my plants bright orange. I've never heard of a way to predict color by looking at the plant alone. As to yellow clivia, I found this recipe -- if things weren't confusing enough! Yellow Clivia Genetics