cymbidium beads of moisture

[orchid-man]

yes it is normal,some plants do it more readily than others.The substance is cellulose .

Hello all,

I recently bought a few cymbidiums and I noticed that one (maureen carter) has small beads of moisture forming behind the flower petals where the petal meets the spike... more recently I noticed that a new pseudobulb growth on my 'Golden Tiger' has some of these same small beads of moisture forming. It's not water, but something secreted by the plant I think. Is this normal? Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers
-Adam

[pavel]

The substance is cellulose .

I could of course be in error but I don't believe it is cellulose rather mainly glucose or some other sugar form.

[orchid-man]

Cellulose is what the plant produces for its growth.It is a sugar that the plant cells convert so as to grow and multiply,another words,its the plants food.

I could of course be in error but I don't believe it is cellulose rather mainly glucose or some other sugar form.

[Ron-NY]

My understanding is cellulose makes up the support of a plant, the cell wall ??? Unless the term is used differently in New Zealand. Cellulose is a polymer of a sugar molecule but it is a very long chain. So, I don't believe this to be cellulose but it is a sugary secretion coming from what I assume are stomata that are stuck partially open. There are a few types of orchids that have very specific strictures for the release and storage of this secretion. Coryanthes are well known for this and are commonly called "bucket orchids" I assume that the secretion on buds of certain species is for drawing ants or bees for the purpose of pollination.

Coryanthes most likely has the most complex pollination mechanism of all the orchids. "Pollination-- Pollination of Coryanthes is effected mainly by bees of the genus Euglossa (the pollinators being exclusively male). The large flowers of Coryanthes secrete a waxy oil that is highly fragrant and serves as an attractant for the pollinators. The bees detect the fragrance (which is POWERFUL) from afar and track it to the flowers. The bee then lands on the epichile, and makes his way up the mesochile, scraping up the oil that he will later use in his mating rituals. As he makes his way up the mesochile, he crawls under the hood of thehypochile, where he loses his footing on the slick surface and falls into the bucket of the epichile, where a slightly viscus, slimy fluid is collected, with a constant flow of it dripping from the faucet gland. Now that the bee is wet, he cannot fly out, and the inner sides of the epichile are too slick to climb up. The only way to escape the clutches of the flower is to squeeze his way out the "spout" of the lip. He thus collects the pollinia of the flower and deposits any from other flowers (not necessarily in that order)."- from OrchidSafari Archives