Field of Science

Friday Fabulous Flower - Dendrobium


Spring is slowly coming along outside and most of our houseplant orchids are in flower.  After being outside until the cool fall, the combination of day length and temperature just prompts them all to flower.  This is a Dendrobium, a bamboo orchid, probably D. anosmum, but when a genus has more than 1000 species, and many are in cultivation, not to mention hybrids, a plant of uncertain parentage just gets an educated guess.  Flowering occurs along the old stems that sort of cascade from their hanging basket, so the floral display is pretty large, the flowers are large, 3" across, and a couple of dozen flowers is not unusual.  Unfortunately these won't last as long as some orchid flowers.  You can sort of see that they are rather thin and delicate, almost membranous, so a real annual treat.   

1 comment:

Katherine Wagner-Reiss said...

Thank you ,TTP. I have always used the common name "cane orchids", but , now that you point it out, "bamboo orchid" fits also.
Love that your photo illustrates that the petals/sepals are delicate, almost membranous ; a beautiful feature that I will note in the future.