In Hawaiian keiki means “baby,” referring to a baby plant produced asexually (usually occurring in Dendrobiums, Phalaenopsis, or Vandaceous orchid species). The keiki is a clone of the mother plant. Although the keiki look neat, they are usually a good indication that your orchid plant is under some kind of stress.
Orchid Keiki
The keiki forms because the mother plant is under the impression that it is going to die, so it thinks it needs to propagate itself to ensure life. So instead of sending a flower spike out after the plant finished blooming; the energy that would normally be used to produce the spike has been used in distress mode (thus producing the keiki).
An orchid plant can be put under stress, and develop keikis’ for numerous reasons:
- Watered too much at times; and then neglected at other times.
- Too much or too little sun.
- And the most important; orchids may sit on humidity trays that often times are empty, so it doesn’t give the orchid what it needs in term of humidity requirements. A humidity tray needs to be filled when all of the water has evaporated.
You really have two options here; you can either take the keiki (after the roots have formed) and remove the new plant from the “mother” orchid, then plant it in orchid potting “bark” or other potting mediums of your choice made for orchids. On the other hand, if it were my orchid, I probably wouldn’t bother with the keiki (in my opinion the wait isn’t worth it, unless you’ve intentionally grown a keiki for propagation). Instead I’d cut the flower spike an inch from the base of the plant and take careful care of my orchid until it bloomed once again.
