GardenBanter.co.uk - Sometimes I am such a noo noo

You know, there are days when I really wonder about myself.

A month or so ago I bought an Aerangis luteoalba rhodosticta from
Parkside Orchids. It's a little thing planted in a 2" clay pot. I've
been babying it along in its special spot on the window sill waiting
for it to adapt to its new environment. So, a while back this skinny
green root pokes its nose out of the media. I think to myself "Man,
that's a bit skinny for a root" so I gently poke around and examine
it very carefully because I'm thinking that by some sort of miracle
this might be a spike. It's long, wraps half way around the pot before
it surfaces. It's absolutely smooth, no nodes or bumps that you might
expect to see on a spike and it's blunt on the end like a root so I figure
it's some kind of freak root and I gently push the tip down into the
media where it can stay moist. No big deal, after all, that kind of
thing occasionally happens when a plant is adapting to a new environment.

Fast forward to this morning. The tip of the "root" is sticking out of
the pot again and from my vantage point it looks a bit longer and skinnier
and appears to have a bump near the tip. So, I go to the window sill
intending to deal with this misbehaving orchid root and lo and behold
it's no root, it's flower spike and there are now little flower buds
along half the length of it.

Now I get to somehow get this spike above ground and trained in some
half decent shape so I can get a decent bloom. I feel like I've been
hoodwinked by a plant, and a little punk, pint-sized one at that!

Dave Sheehy