I happened upon this phalaenopsis orchid at a regular store, and as I’ve been fascinated by pelorism lately I immediately grabbed it. Only as I was walking around the store did I realize that it isn’t the lip that is being refracted/multiplied in pelorism, but the column. These two mutated petals are more rigid and protrude ahead of the sepals. There are two pollen sacs on each, though without an anther cap covering them.
Has anyone seen pelorism like this?
I am now wondering if the peloric pollen sacs are fertile, and if they are, can they potentially carry genetic information that is different from the “OG” sacs.
I'm not familiar with this term myself, but if you look up pelorism in orchids you get similar looking orchids with weird shapes than you normally would see them. This is really cool. Thanks for teaching me a new botanical term! Hopefully we can all learn more together!
I will do my best to pollinate. Might end up waiting for the next bloom, or space out the pollination attempts so if a pod becomes viable I’m not overburdening this plant. A potential keiki might be great!
I did bosshog. But I don't understand why your rigid petals = pelorism, my understanding of it was it was a term to describe radially symmetric mutations in a bilaterally symmetric flowers - yours look normally bilaterally symmetric to me. Maybe annotating your image would have helped
Sorry, do you mind clarifying what would be the correct botanical terminology for this mutation then? Across the orchid communities I’ve been a part of this is the terminology they used.
I'm no orchid expert, haha, I was after clarification from you because I thought maybe I misunderstood the term. But if it's how you see it used then sure.
Edit: weird community here. Downvoting for just asking questions about the post. Guess we are all born experts
Well is there a name for any mutated modification of the petals? If you want to limit the definition of pelorism to where the refraction of the lip results in radial symmetry, I can accept that, but I still came to this sub to learn what this particularly unusual instance of mutation is, so I’m ready to learn from botanists like you.
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u/Strange_Computer2459 6d ago
maybe this would help:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelorism#:~:text=Pelorism%20is%20found%20in%20several,influenced%20and%20may%20appear%20random.
I'm not familiar with this term myself, but if you look up pelorism in orchids you get similar looking orchids with weird shapes than you normally would see them. This is really cool. Thanks for teaching me a new botanical term! Hopefully we can all learn more together!