Phalaenopsis with small leaves
 

I have a Phalaenopsis 'Mount Lip' which is growing strangely. In the last year or so it has put out 9 new leaves, but each of them are less than half the length of the original leaves. It hasn't flowered since this started, so I don't know if the flower will be affected. The leaves otherwise look great, and there's lots of good roots. I repotted it about the same time in clay brick chunks, but I doubt that that is the cause, since I also have other phals potted the same way and they grow normally. Culturally (light, water, temp, etc) it's grown the same as the other phals too. Any ideas what causes this?

Weird Leaves
 

Wow, I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like that before. I will be very interested in finding out if someone knows what causes this myself....good luck! :)

did you get this when it was flowering ? were the flowers normal ? This looks to me like some sort of genetic problem. I have a similar phal, in that the leaves are fantastic and plentiful but each flower on the spike is progressively deformed. Again, this phal receives no different treatment to the others. I discovered on another forum that mine is known for genetic disorders and was advised to trash it. I should, but I just can't ! :twocents:

Wow, what a mutation that is!!!!! I'd like to know as well. Hopefully one of our knowledgeable members can assist you with this one.

What gets me puzzled is the bottom leaves are normal! So it has the capability to grow normally?? It's not getting a lot of SuperThrive or something is it? Usually when subsequent leave are smaller and smaller it is indicating poor growing conditions. But there are more leaves than usual and they look happy as small as they are. Very strange!

I was just reading an old AOS magazine and it had an article on phal lighting. it said that if it doe not get enough light, it will get smaller leaves, and they will be dark green..

so i think your problem is not enough light, because the leaves are small, they are pretty dark, and it hasnt bloomed. all those things lead me to believe you should increase your lighting

Bob, I guess it could need more light. Other phals in the same area bloom, but maybe this one is more fussy. The leaves are kinda dark. But what is strange is that it is growing so fast (9 leaves in 1 year), which would seem to show that it's getting light.

Silken, I do use a little Dyna KLN (like Superthrive), but I use it the same on all my plants.

interesting! in the same article i was reading, it said that plants with lower light grew more leaves and grew them faster than those in higher or "normal" light levels. they also said that the plants in the lowest light level tested ended up the the same combined leaf length as plants in the highest light level!

just something to think about. i would say give it more light and see what happens! maybe its shaded because its smaller

It could be one with some breeding that needs a bit more light. The new small leaves do look darker than the old bottom leaves. A bit of KLN shouldn't cause that as it is rooting hormone only, not other hormones as well like SuperThrive. You could cut the KLN as an experiment if it has good roots anyways.

I agree, try some more light but do it slowly so as not to burn the leaves. It still shouldn't be direct light.

I was just reading in my Orchids magazine (May 2008) an article about light. It says Phals grown under excessively low light levels develop thin, narrow longer leaves. So maybe the older longer leaves on your plant were grown in low light and now under higher light the plant is growing smaller rounded leaves. It makes since the plant would need less surface area in the leaves for photosynthesis if grown under higher light.

I got a NOID Phal last year as a gift and it had long skinny leaves with a small spike. Now the new leaves that have grown under my care are shorter and wider. They also are darker green. This year it bloomed with a huge spike that branched three times and had a lot more flowers that were bigger than when I got it. I think the leaves are shorter, wider and darker green because I gave it higher light.

But this is the opposite of what Bob said so I don't know. That is just my experience.

Are the flowers small? Could it be a mini Phal?

Usually The more light an orchid gets, the lighter green the leaves are. Too little light and they are dark green. However, this is very true for oncidium and cattleya types but I have found Phal leaves can be very dark, even with a reasonable amount of light while others beside it might have lighter leaves. I think their colour is determined more by genetics and flower colour. Many with pink or purple flowers are quite dark and have a purple pigmentation on them.

I think you might need to do a bit of experimenting with this one!

I also have noticed that while catts and some other genera have lighter leaves under higher light, Phals can get darker leaves under high light. Although a lot of my mini catts can get a really dark purple color under high light too. So I agree with Silken about experimenting with this plant. Let us know how it goes!

thats very interesting! i can type out the article if you want. both seem to make sense. :roll: lol!

if it is in lower light then it had before, then why are the older leaves (grown before he/she got it) longer and thinner?

i still think it is due to low light though, because of the dark leaves. ive observed in my collection that phals will get lighter in higher light, then even higher then that, they will get darker. and as noted above, pink and purple phals will often exhibit dark leaves and sometimes red pigmentation on or under them.

Bob- There probably is no way of knowing what kind of light the plant was growing in before he got the plant so maybe it is being grown in higher light now than before. I'm not sure though.

But my NOID Phal gets darker leaves in higher light and the flowers are white with pink veins and pink lip. This is the flower:Attachment 68118

I have noticed that my bellina gets lighter leaves under higher light so maybe it depends on what species are in the background of the hybrid.

It is quite interesting that the plant is growing like that!


Wynn Dee

Good point. But if it (I assume) was flowering for the original owner, wouldn't you think that it was in good lighting then? Maybe it's not lighting, some other factor perhaps!

I think it definitely depends in the parentage for lead coloration habita