It's interesting how the 3 flowers seem to be formed into a bunch/head also. I've grown lots and lots of phals, but that flower bunch and keiki in the center is pretty unusual in my opinion. It's like the stalk quit growing but still developed buds. Did something happen to the end of the spikes (cat, cold window, night goblin :) ) on those two minis?

Bob

I'm sure something happened, but the minis are in different parts of the house. No cats. 2 kids, but the plants are up high where they can't reach. The other mini-phal grew a keiki which I potted up with the mother plant this past fall. Both mom & keiki are now blooming. I'll post a photo later. The only common thread is that both mini-phals were gifts from Whole Foods.

suzabanana, Let me throw out a thought about your "mini" Phals, and their Keiki's and peculiar blooming habits.

Look around on the internet for species Phalaenopsis, and see what you find. There are several species close to Phal. that will cross with them, and some of the Phal's that I knew have been found out by the taxonomists, and are no longer officially Phalaenopsis, but look at what you find on the search.

The large "dinner plate" hybrid Phals that are flooding the market now are the results of many, many generations of very particular breeding in order to produce these plants. Not too many years ago any of the plants on the shelves of grocery stores today would have been highly awarded in any show.

Once the sought after level of bloom perfection was attained, a technique called "cloning" came along, and allowed growers to reproduce any of these plants by the thousands....exact genetic copies of the original plant. There was no other way to do this (other than actually dividing a plant) because of the tremendous genetic diversity of each plant. ( a selfing of any of these plants will produce a Hodge Podge of seedlings with differences in their blooms and plant characteristics)

Now the fad seems to be headed toward miniature Phal. plants with nice sized and shaped blooms.

Looking at the tremendous diversity of species Phals. available, and the number of crosses that have been made over the years, a search of the "pedigree" or lineage of any registered orchid (the Royal Horticulture Society Is the registration authority, and you can actually trace many hybrid orchids back to the species of origin) will show that many of these species orchids are found in the background of todays hybrids.

What all this means is that any given Phal. hybrid may revert back and exhibit a trait from a parent; grand parent; or even a great, great, great, great Grandparent.... Some of these species are highly prone to producing keikis on bloom spikes, or sprouting multiple pups from the base of the plant. I have seen Keikis on blooming spikes that were blooming themselves, and had blooming Keikis on their blooming spikes. It was an amazing plant to be sure.

To obtain the new line of mini Phals, I suspect the breeders have gone back to basics, because many of the species are small growing plants. This would mean that there is much less genetic material to "hide" any given trait, so the plants would be much more apt to exhibit an unusual trait like throwing keikis, or strange bloom patterns.

In short, I think the characteristics you see in your plant can be traced back to one of its ancestors. Just like we sometimes wonder where our children got their red hair, or that funny shaped nose.....until we one day find a photo of great, great, great grandmother so and so.....

Just a thought.

Bill

Hi Suzebanana.

A lot of those "mini Phals" have Phalaenopsis equestris in there genes and that (botanical) Phal has a strong tendency to form keikies, so it is very likely genetic.

Thank you both for the genetics lesson! Certainly not my strong suit, but fascinating nonetheless :)

I will say that it's an odd looking stem - it looks like it's giving birth in extremely slow motion. It's a bit painful for me to look at sometimes, LOL.