What is this dtps/phal growth?

[wisechild9]

This orchid (Dtps. Oriental Pride) has a strange brown nub at its base. It gets these growths from time to time. They start off green and look like it will become a very large root, but the circumference is much bigger than any other root. Then it just turns roundish, doesn't get any longer, and then turns brown. But even as it is brown, it doesn't look to me like a dying root. You can see a new green root starting to grow above it.

The rest of the plant is pretty healthy. This orchid has had a keiki in the past that I separated. Then it grew a basal keiki. I was going to try to separate it but it appears to be part of the parent plant, so I couldn't separate it. Would this have any correlation to these round nubs?

[kmarch]

Well, one thing that's guaranteed (besides death and taxes) is that if you hang out with the geeks long enough you'll see tings you never saw before. And that's the case for me here. I've never seen or heard of anything like this before. But to be fair, I do not grow many phals nor do my orchid mates. I believe this orchid is a complex hybrid and sometimes complex hybrids do odd things. It might be as simple as that. If the plant is otherwise healthy and putting out normal growth and roots too then I probably wouldn't worry. Let's see what some of our phal experts have to say.

[Mira-Claude]

Looks like some kind of wart!
Never seen or heard of that before!

[gabi_borza]

That's strange! Never seen that before! I grow phals, and I see that from time to time roots get stuck between the bases of the leaves, and so they look like bumps, but yours isn't like that. I am curious if someone can give you an answer.

[wisechild9]

Here's another photo that shows an older "wart bump" that is under the latest one. When they get older, they shrink in diameter. I used to think that they were just really big, fat roots because I had maybe overfertilized, but then they wouldn't grow any longer. Do you think they are overgrown roots that couldn't sustain themselves to grow longer? The other thing I was thinking, was maybe it's a seed pod, but it didn't grow properly?