How to Tell Real Tiger-Stripe Orchids from Fake Ones? A Detailed Guide to Identification Methods

Method for making fake tiger stripes: after the orchid bud opens its mouth, mix "chlormequat" with "daminozide"; chlormequat alone turns the leaves yellow, daminozide alone turns them white, and when the two are mixed and dripped onto the orchid leaves, they produce yellow-white tiger stripes. This method is rather troublesome, since as the small bud grows, the solution must be dripped onto the orchid leaves several times for it to work.

Real tiger stripes: in most tiger-stripe variegated orchids, the new shoots start out with a slightly yellow variegation, and the variegation color gradually deepens.

Chemically induced fake tiger stripes are yellow as soon as they sprout, so it makes sense to distinguish real from fake on this basis too.

One, start by looking at the roots. The lowest-grade fake plants, because they have been artificially cultivated and treated with toxic chemical solutions, show black roots to varying degrees. (These days quite a few orchid growers spray the chemicals directly on wild orchids in the mountains, so it is hard to tell from the roots either.)

Two, looking at the variegation pattern, you can hold a fake plant up directly to the light: fake plants show discolored leaf veins to varying degrees (when held to the light, the veins turn pure white one by one and are clearly visible), whereas real variegated plants show an even sheet of variegation color (the leaf veins of wild-collected tiger-stripe orchids are mostly green). This is caused by over-spraying, which kills the chlorophyll.

Three, looking at the variegation color, real tiger stripes are natural and glossy, while fake plants' stripes are dull. Many orchid sellers wipe the fake stripe areas with green grass leaves before selling fake plants, hoping to produce a green, glossy effect. When buying such variegated plants, just wash them lightly with water and you can tell real from fake.

Four, when observing real variegated plants, you will find that any wild-collected tiger-stripe orchid shows, to varying degrees, a little green moss within the stripes (except for high-grade stable variegated plants), whereas fake variegated plants, because of the chemicals used, will not have this green moss at all!

Five, the stripe positions on fake variegated plants are similar, while the stripe positions on real variegated plants are mostly irregular, and overall the stripe patterns are beautiful.

When buying, checking item by item according to the above can greatly reduce your chances of buying fake tiger-stripe orchids.