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Originally Posted by c.whitcomb  it is starting to look like that yeah. i agree about the underdevelopedness of the older leaves. i may do a serious cutback and repot next spring. |
Cut back? I would leave anything green on a seedling until it has several mature, bloomed-out growths. Those leaves still make food for the plant, you know. The plant will just make as large a growth as it has energy to make, each time; up to it's maximum size.
Also, with hybrids, bifoliatedness (i can make up words, I'm from Texas) is highly irregular. You could have all sorts of species, both bifoliate and uniforliate in the background, which can lead to all sorts of back and forth from one leaf to two. Even som species are irregular. C. bicolor, elongata, tenuis, and the others of section schomburkoideae can have three or four leaves (although two is normal) and C. walkeriana usually has one leaf, but relatively often has two on a growth.
TO the original question, ideally every new growth should be larger and larger until the plant reaches it's mazimum size. When the seed germinates, it forms a small ball of cells called a protocorm, and of course, each new growth has to get larger and larger from that ball of cells, until the growths are up to 3-4' in some bifoliate species. Bigger growths, so long as they aren't floppy and dark green are always a good thing.
-Cj