Thank you for your suggestions/opinions, people. I knew i could count on you.
Some more pictures of my little villosum (the shiny spots are from the pesticide):
Here you can see that the older leaves turn greener after a while, but never fully green:
Second newest leaf on the oldest growth:
Newest leaf on the oldest growth:
This is the plant when I got it home (it's still in the same pot), it was planted in pure bark, and I let it stay in that for about a year before I repotted it into my preferred mix of bark, perlite, and sphagnum. It got these chlorotic leaves when planted in pure bark, and in my mix, so I don't think it's the substrate:
could be, could also just be variegation.
are the virus test kits available there? here in the US there are labs that will test a leaf sample for $5 USD. that is the only way to know.
I've managed to find two places that sell virus test kits; Agdia - Biofords (this is Agdia's distributor in Europe I think), and Biosense Laboratories, which sells Pocket Diagnostics.
On the new leaves or just the old ones? Could be culture.
All leaves. They start out almost without any pigmentation, and then they turn more and more green as they grow/age.
I have seen this on a couple of my sanderianum seedlings (or something similar to it). Some of the leaf tip is completely chlorotic - pure white! It seems to grow out after a while. Don't think it's a virus though because it is too concentrated on the edges???
Let us know what happens with this one!
As you can see, it's very focused around the edges on the leaves. To me, it looks like some sort of failed variegation attempt. I'm going to give it a bit more light and see how it reacts to that.
I would also be worried about that
The funny part is; I haven't been that worried about it. Perplexed and cautious (because you never know when plants look weird what it could be), but not really worried. Maybe I'm just too used to seeing it, because it doesn't bother me as much as it should. I just don't think it looks unhealthy, weird and not particularly pretty, yes, but not sick.
Have you ever repotted it into anything else? Paph villosum is epiphytic and not like the others you mentioned. I think its culture problem and/or genetic. With orchid seed germination you can "save" sports that would most likely parish in the wild. When I did my own flasking I could get plants like this, sports. Usually didn't keep them around.
I let it stay in the substrate it came in, pure bark, for about a year before repotting it into bark, perlite, and sphagnum. It got chlorotic leaves in both substrates.
Here's a picture of another villsoum I had, (bought it as a henryanum, so I was quite surprised when the hairy bud appeared), together with its buddy, helenae:
I had this villsoum for about a year, standing right next to my weird one, potted in the same substrate (my mix), and treated exactly the same way. I don't think it's a cultural issue...
