do you know what the plant is?? .. oh i see aroid ... on closer reading of forums ...

with a pic we can ID it ...

then we can go from there ...

ken

I’m having trouble understanding what the issue is just from the description. What is the plant? What is a ‘top cutting’? Was it already rooted or was it just a piece of a plant that you are trying to root yourself? What is the perceived problem? Can you post a picture please?

If you snap a picture now, it can very likely be determined if you started w/a 'tip' cutting as opposed to an internodal cutting, the difference being the internodal cutting would have had the growing tip (apical meristem/ apex) removed from it by the process of 'pinching', or tip pruning. In all cases, when the cutting remains viable, new BRANCHES form in the axils (crotch formed by leaf stem and the branch). See new branches in image below.

Internodal cutting ^^^ of Ficus microcarpa. New branches are FORCED to form in leaf axils when the growing tip of the branch is removed/pinched. Removing the tip of a branch or stem eliminates synthesis of the lion's share of a chemical (auxin) which inhibits activation of latent (dormant) buds in leaf axils.

The dormant buds are not affected equally. The bud immediately proximal to (just below) the pruning cut (top bud) is most affected, and the effect diminishes in buds according to their location, with those furthest from the pruning cut being least affected. This is because some of the chemical responsible for inhibition of bud activation is produced in leaves. As each leaf below the pinch/ pruning cut adds its measure of auxin to the sap stream, the effects of removing the main source of auxin (the branch tip) are diminished.

..... it looks like the second leaf down, not the top leaf, is developing new leaf growth. I got conflicting information on whether or not this is possible, and I'm very new, so I was curious if anyone else had heard that this could happen. That your plant is behaving in the manner you described is all the evidence needed to confirm it is indeed possible; though as I mentioned above, we would EXPECT the to bud to be the first to respond to pinching. Perhaps the pruning cut was too close to the top bud, which might well have caused the buds in that location to die due to desiccation or injury.

Al