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.   

Friday Fabulous Flower - a Queensland orchid

What with the international date line crossings, the Phactor is a bit unclear about the day of the week, even more than usual. However, my trusty international Casio watch, which has a better understanding of such things, tells me it's a Friday, so time to blog about a flower, as if this never happens otherwise. This particular orchid (Dendrobium linguiforme) is a wonderful plant that can (or could be) found in a wide variety of habitats, most often as a stem epiphyte of trees. As you will note the tough sclerophytic leaves and short stocky rhizome form a substrate hugging mat that allows it to survive in some pretty harsh places. Unfortunately it's easy to grow and the flowering is quite lovely, if brief, and the flowers are fragrant, all of which leads frequently to poaching from the wild.