Severly Confused Dragon Fruit Plant

[Jacob13]

Hello All,

The following pictures are from on of my Dragon Fruit plants that is suffering an Identity Crisis.  It couldn't decide whether it wanted another branch or a flower.  This is the strangest thing I have ever come across with growing Dragon Fruit.

At first the new grow was 100% flower and looked as such.  For that reason, there was nothing unusual at that time so I did not take a picture.

However, as the "Flower" continued to grow, it began to change back into a "Branch".


You can see from the lower portion of the "Branch", that there are what appears to be "Sepals" which should only be growing on "Flowers", but are present on the "Branch" (They are the surviving remnants when it was growing first as a "Flower")




It appears as though the Branch/Flower at this point had transformed from "Flower" back into "Branch", as evidenced by the presence of thorns where once were "Sepals", and then as you follow the progression, back into a "Flower"


Then as you can see from the Pictures, it began changing back into a "Flower"








- Jacob

[HMHausman]

Clearly your dragon fruit is getting mixed hormonal signals.  I have never seen this in dragonfruit, but it might be akin to lychees mangoes that mix up growth flushes with its bloom cycle.  Very interesting shots...thanks for posting.

[JoeP450]

Lol very confused indeed. I have never seen anything like that in my dragon fruit, hope it is no such dragon fruit disease like in mangos with mango malformation where the blooms go bonkers.

-JoeP450

[mikesid]

thats weird..maybe some sort of mutation or disease

[plantlover13]

wierd. Did you fertilize it after it bloomed?i have heard of mango and lychee flowers turning into leaf flushes for that reason, i think.

[Jacob13]

I had actually fertilized it a few weeks before this occurred.  Very Strange though......

[plantlover13]

I had actually fertilized it a few weeks before this occurred.  Very Strange though......

Maybe too much nitrogen made it want to switch to growth phase?

[MassSpectrum]

Certainly plant hormone signaling mixups. Very bizarre! Possibly driven by wild shifts in nighttime temps over a period of weeks? Appears we can rule out external plant sources of phytochemical / phytohormone influences?

[Rannman]

Nice pics.  I have noticed similar growth at the moment in Queensland. It is the last week in Autumn and after a cold snap 3 weeks ago things have taken off. I have had 3 plants throw out flower buds(no fert or anything that would induce flowering) and all have turned into normal be branch growth. Maybe it is a heat thing as it has been very warm for Autumn. Having said that, my plants are growing like crazy with temps in the high 20's so hopefully a warm winter will help to produce a lot of summer fruit.

[FLnative]

While not nearly as confused as Jacob’s plant, one of my dragon fruit vines recently decided to grow with only two sets of spines, or flat.



Here is a picture of whole plant.

[Dangermouse01]

My Yellow seems to be confused, has a couple of flower buds starting in May instead of the Aug-Nov.
Just harvested the last of the fruits at the end of April.


DM