Brand new to orchids and have several questions. For my first orchid I
bought a Cattleya that had no tag on it. It is in a 6" pot and has 16
pseudobulbs on it. Each has 1 leaf. Some of the pseudobulbs seem to
have sprouted fron the stem of, and just below, another pseudobulb.
All the leaves are very dark green and firm. Two of the leaves had two
buds on them and the larger set of buds opened today the flowers are a
deep lavender and the lip is a deep purple. They are about 4" in size
and seem very healthy. My questions are ....

1. Some of the leaves have a dark purple tip on them and none of the
books I have read says anything about this...it it normal??
2. Is it normal for a new pseudobulb to sprout off the stem of another
or do they normally come off of the rhizome ??
3. Several of the leaves seem to have a small start of a bud stem
coming out of them that look greenish and healthy but some have bud
stems that seem to be blackish and dead ..is this normal??
4. I paid $30 for it...was that a fair price ??

Thanks for your answers and I look forward to my orchid adventure.

Larry
Atlanta

Welcome aboard!

1. This is most probably what I call suntan; some people don't like it and
consider it sunburn. Plants will show pigment [of approximately the same
color as the flowers] in the foliage when grown very bright. You can get
rid of this [eventually] by increasing the shade, but you may get less
abundant flowering if you do so. Cold damage can also turn foliage red or
red-purple -- it can be hard to distinguish until you've seen a number of
cases. If that's the case, I would not expect it to go away even with extra
shade.

2. Generally, the new pbs do first appear at the very bottom of the older
ones -- somehow, by the time they mature, they're coming from the rhizome.
If you have them coming from higher up, you may have a problem down in the
pot. These higher "adventitious nodes" don't usually sprout if the lower
ones are viable.

3. Without seeing the plant, it's hard to say, but I would guess that the
blackish dead ones are marking the sites of prior bloomings.

4. IMHO, $30 is a _very_ good price for a 16-pb catt, even without a name
tag, unless there is something else seriously wrong with it. 16 pbs in a 6"
pot sounds like rather a lot to me, so you should probably plan to repot
immediately after this flowering -- at which point you'll find out if you
have that possible problem in the pot (which could be the reason for the low
price).

Good growing,

--
Kenni Judd
Juno Beach Orchids

http://www.jborchids.com
"larry flink" wrote in message
om...
Brand new to orchids and have several questions. For my first orchid I
bought a Cattleya that had no tag on it. It is in a 6" pot and has 16
pseudobulbs on it. Each has 1 leaf. Some of the pseudobulbs seem to
have sprouted fron the stem of, and just below, another pseudobulb.
All the leaves are very dark green and firm. Two of the leaves had two
buds on them and the larger set of buds opened today the flowers are a
deep lavender and the lip is a deep purple. They are about 4" in size
and seem very healthy. My questions are ....

1. Some of the leaves have a dark purple tip on them and none of the
books I have read says anything about this...it it normal??
2. Is it normal for a new pseudobulb to sprout off the stem of another
or do they normally come off of the rhizome ??
3. Several of the leaves seem to have a small start of a bud stem
coming out of them that look greenish and healthy but some have bud
stems that seem to be blackish and dead ..is this normal??
4. I paid $30 for it...was that a fair price ??

Thanks for your answers and I look forward to my orchid adventure.

Larry
Atlanta