Spike or Raceme ???

[jai_star]

Right just to clarify a lot of people refer spikes to the inflorescence of Phalaenopsis sp however is it not true that a definition of a spike is that it has sessile flowers ( flowers attached right onto the inflorescence. While a raceme has pendicelled flowers ( the stem which attaches the flowers to the inflorescence )

[camille1585]

We've brought it up in the past, and it's good to remind it. Basically the more experienced growers do know the proper names, but it is more simple for everyone to simply to refer to any inflorescence as a spike, and it's also the term more widely used in the orchid community anyway. Short and easy to remember! And there nothing scientific about the word nubbin (coined by our dearly missed Dorothy) that we often use, and which refers to a newly growing root or spike or keiki.

[WhiteRabbit]

good info - I did not know that

[Ray]

From my free info page:



You can actually find several different type of inflorescences among orchids - most paphs are "single", some bulbos/cirrhos are umbellate, phals are, ideed, racemes, and many oncidiums have panicles, for example.

[Oscarman]

Wonderfully illustrated Ray, thank you.

[bballr4567]

So what about Phals that have a branching raceme? Panicle?

[WhiteRabbit]

Thanks for the illustration and info Ray!

[Ray]

Anyone wanting to grab that for a society newsletter - or any of the stuff on my "free info" page, for that matter - may feel free to do so, as long as I am credited.

A copy of the newsletter would be nice, too.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Originally Posted by bballr4567

So what about Phals that have a branching raceme? Panicle?

Panicle, yes, correct.

A better description, (albeit a more general description), than "branching raceme" would be "branching inflorescence" - although you're technically not wrong.

[tropterrarium]

Inflorescence is any flowering structure with multiple flowers in the sense of reproductive unit. A branching raceme is one kind of a branching inflorescence, but an umbel is also an inflorescence.

For those who wonder about the qualifier "reproductive unit", a sunflower is a single large morphological unit (the head = what is colloquially referred to as a "sun flower"), composed of many reproductive units, often even spatially specialized with peripheral tongue-flowers (linguliflorae) and central tube-flowers (tubuliflorae).

Some Apiacaea (aka the old Umbeliferae) with their umbels occasionally also have somewhat spatially specialized flowers. Those at the periphery occasionally have larger peripheral petals.

The converse is the case in Iris, in which one reproductive unit has three morphological units. Good stuff to chat about in botany exam.

In botanical German one makes a distinction between reproductive unit (Blüte) and morphological/functional unit (Blume) [Blume is also used for the whole flowering plant, like the English colloquial term "flower"]. Don't know of such a pair of terms in English.

I am not aware of any such specialization in orchids; given that there are 30K species, there should be some odd-ball groups around.

Nice diagram, Ray!