growing and....

[c.whitcomb]

Hey there folks! just a silly kind of question here:

I have been tending to this catt for some time... its my first orchid and i got it at steins in that little mesh bag, know what i mean? well after some seriously great advice on this forum its growing more and more. the newest growth is this developing leaf which is just getting bigger and bigger and, uh, bigger. its now substantially larger than the other leaves on the plant. should i expect this to grow much more? its about 6 inches now, but clearly is still developing. this plant looks to be bifoliate because the last growth has two leaves, although they are much smaller than this as they were growing in to little light i think. anyway, thanks again you guys.

orchids continue to surprise me, and despite whatever my girlfriend may say, are definitly worth the effort.

-colin

[mayres]

Did you have a name with your catt? Some of them get very large and with the name someone can probably tell you what to expect from the mature blooming plant - as you are finding out, it can be substantially different from a you seedling. Sometimes it can take 4-5 years for a seedling catt to bloom. mike

[Tobi]

Colin,
Does your Catt's larger leaf look something like this?



I have noticed on 2 of my bifoliate ones that I have a new leaf growth that has only 1 leaf that is quite a bit bigger than the rest with 2 leaves. I'm
not sure what causes this occurance, unless it's because the other leaf never
developed and the one leaf just grows bigger. It would be interesting to hear
from some of our long time growers what their thoughts are about this.

[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.

[Orchidflowerchild]

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

[c.whitcomb]

Awesome! thanks cj. I guess i'll just wait and see what develops.