HU- interesting, no, I have not seen this either, but then I usually cut my Phal. bloom spikes off at the base unless they branch before the blooms fall off. I'll throw out a couple of thoughts just to get folks thinking. Your plant is probably a "big box store" acquisition, meaning if was surely grown overseas where they have a tendency to use some pretty high powered growth stimulants and hormones to produce robust plants in a hurry. In a plant that grows as slowly as an orchid, it may take years to get all of that stuff out of a plants system. Your first photo (The one where you are holding the stem), yes that does look like a beginning bloom spike. The one with the plant in a jar more resembles the possible start of a Keiki. Are you putting any kind of fertilizer in the water the stem is in? Covering the stem to jack the humidity up is probably what triggered it to start growing, and perhaps it has not figured out yet just what it wants to be. I'd let it continue as it is, and see just what it wants to be. I'm interested...Let us know what develops.

Bill

Hi Bill. Thanks for your reply. I, too, cut the spikes off at the base when flowering is over. This segment in water is just a piece of one of those spikes. When I did this a couple of years ago with the severed flower spike of another phal, a keiki quickly formed on that piece and grew roots. When the roots were long enough, I potted it up and it’s doing ok. But the growth on this new piece looks a lot like other new flower spikes. I’ll definitely update you on its progress.

As for where it came from, I think you’re right in that it must have been bred in some orchid factory, where they put them into some medium designed to shorten their lives, and overdo the hormones. Friends give me their half-dead phals, imprisoned in sphagnum moss. This comes from one of them.

Whether a bloom spike produces a flowering branch, or a baby plant is, in most cases dependent on the genetics of the parent plants that went into the mix of genes in the plant in question. The chemical mix they are grown in is an attempt to get the plant to grow faster, so they can get them on the market sooner.