What is your experience/advice?

[elitebettas]

Okay, here we go again. I have many orchids but my cattleyas are confusing me lately. It seems that the psuedobulbs never mature with sheaths. Even previous blooms I had when I first purchased the plants had sheaths. The bulbs in my care do not produce sheaths or if they do they are only a cm long or the bulbs mature with just a little nub on the top (similar to that terminal type nub on nobile dendrobiums). I have never seen this nub once start to grow into buds. The only time they bloom is when the new growth is just about mature and then they go immediately into bud without a sheath. If the bulb matures and the nub is there, the bulb never blooms. I only have a few explanations.
Perhaps these bulbs that grow and mature without sheath or going straight into bud are growth initiated by the plant at the wrong part of the season (winter) and haven't recieved the proper environmental cues to mature enough to bloom?
Perhaps, the bulbs are maturing too fast and not able to mature at the proper intervals/steps in order to bloom?
My catts are all around my porch and on a few windowsills and all receive good quality light at good durations. Growth is sturdy, fat and robust.
Just this evening I was inspecting a huge mounted cat I have and looked at all the new growth getting reading to open the leaf crease (inifolar) and felt two big buds poking out of only ONE new growth with no sheath. I'm expecting the other new growths to mature with that "nub" and no flowers....
I'm confused! Has anyone ever had their cats bloom from these seeminly dormant nubs on the apex of the psuedobulbs?

[kmarch]

elite...

When it comes to Cattleya hybrids, most bet are off with regard to sheaths or no sheaths, etc., etc. It all depends on the blooming habits of the mix of hybrids and species in the background and which characteristics come to the fore in the plant you have. But it does seem that a cattleya plant is usually consistent with itself. For example I have some cattleya alliance plants that produce sheaths then buds form inside the sheath then bloom, while another one seems to have blooms starting to poke out as soon as the leaf opens enough, while another doesn't grow sheaths at all, and all of these plants continue to consistently grow/bloom in hey way that they have. Did I make sense in all of that?

But you are correct in that when a cattleya gets that "nub" instead of a sheath, that nub never goes on to flower.

How long have you had these Cattleyas?

[pikevi]

I am sorry I can help you with any info, elitebettas.

kmarch: quote-"But you are correct in that when a cattleya gets that "nub" instead of a sheath, that nub never goes on to flower."

I have collected a fair number of Cattleyas ( 12 of them , I believe) during the past two months. All are doing very well and are giving forth new growths- many of then in each plant. BUt almost all of them began as 'nubs'. I am yet to see a 'sheathed' growth.

Does it mean none of them will bloom? Also could there be some deficiency that may cause this?

Thanks.

I will try to get some photos of the new growths sometime today.

[kmarch]

pikevi, we're most certainly using the term "nub" to refer to different structures as the "nubs" I'm talking about form neither sheaths nor buds and never bloom. The structure I'm referring to as a "nub" is found on cattleya alliance plants at the top of a pseudobulb where the leaf connects to the pseudobulb. I'm afraid I dont' have a picture handy but I did find a picture on the net that shows pretty well what I am talking about.

Looking at the picture if you look at the leaf/growth in the far lower right hand corner of the picture, you'll see a kind of "nub" inside the leaf where it connects to the pseudobulb. This is the kind of numb I'm talking about and these never grow onto flower.

[pikevi]

Thank you ,kmarch.

I am relieved after your explanation. Mine are real new growths and have grown to more than 15cm (6") each.

I was out the whole day and I couldn't get them photographed. I will do so ASAP.