A Minicatt Goes Haywire
Hi again everyone-
I tried to post this earlier but things were too busy, so here goes again!
Well here's a thing. The growing buds of this miniature cattleya of mine have ruptured the back of its leaf. Just this afternoon I sat down and took a good look at what's going on. And as you all can see the front of the leaf has failed to open fully, and so the buds got trapped inside what was now a partial tube. Fortunately the back of the leaf opened up by phimosis along a length of its midrib. I never realised that phimosis (splitting along a line of weak tissue) was present in orchids. (I have noted orchid blooms opening by phimosis of conjoined sepals... but never thought their leaves exhibited the same mechanism.
To be sure, palms famously develop their leaves by phimosis of tightly pleated (but entire) leaves. Well palms and orchids... both families are monocots (Asparagales, or Liliales as they were called in my earliest youth...) and I get to thinking: grasses, banans, gingers and so on... do they operate by phimosos too. Seems likely. Is this a widespread characteristic of monocots? We should be told!
Has anyone had this kind of thing go on among their orchids? Or anything else cute and weird?
(BY THE WAY: this tiny plant has the heavyweight name X Prosrhyncholeya Chief Green River 'Green Jiangnan'. One of the complex modern Cattleya hybrids that do not produce sheaths.)
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