Dendrobium stratiotes Rchb. f. 1886 SECTION Spatulata

Inflorescence and plant

Photo by © Lourens Grobler

Inflorescence

Photo by © Eric Hunt

Common Name The Stalwart Dendrobium [refers to the flowers standing up in a row with the sepal]

Flower Size 3 to 4" [8 to 10 cm]

Found in western New Guinea, the Moluccas [Halmaheira and Morotai], the Sunda Islands and Sulawesi at lower elevations as a medium to large sized, hot to warm growing epiphyte with clustered, terete to long fusiform stems carrying 5 to many, rigid, leathery, persistent, narrowly ovate to oblong-lanceolate, coriaceous, subacute, obliquely bilobed apically leaves that blooms in the summer and fall on an erect to suberect, 3 to 12" [7.5 to 30 cm] long, inflorescence with tubular, subacute to obtuse floral bracts and carrying 4 to 15, large flowers that arises from the middle to the apex of mature pseudobulbs occuring in the summer and fall.

Water should be reduced and fertilizer eliminated during the winter months and resumed with the onset of new growth in the spring.

Similar to D leporinum but differs in the larger flowers and segments and a lip that has the mid-lobe as half the total length of the lip and has yellow green to green petals.

Similar to D antennatum but this one differs in the narrowing towards the apex column, more constricted midlobe with only 3 stripes at the height of the mid-lobe, abruptly narrowing towards the back.

Synonyms Callista stratiotes (Rchb.f.) Kuntze 1891; Ceratobium stratiotes (Rchb.f.) M.A.Clem. & D.L.Jones 2002; Dendrobium strebloceras Rchb.f 1886 var rossianum

References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchidaceae Monandre-Dendrobiinae Fr. Kraenzlin 1910; Die Orchideen Schlechter 1915 photo good; Die Orchideen 2 Auflage Schlechter 1927 photo good; Flora of Malaya Vol 1 Orchids Holttum 1953 drawing fide; Encyclopedia of Cultivated Orchids Hawkes 1965; Orchids of Asia Soon 1980; AOS Bulletin Vol 50 No 11 1981 photo fide; Die Orchideen lieferung 11/12 Schlechter/Brieger 1981; The Antelope Dendrobiums Cribb 1985 drawing/photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 55 No 11 1986 photo fide; Orchid Digest Vol 56 No 3 1992 photo fide; The Manual Of Cultivated Orchid Species Bechtel, Cribb & Laurent 1992 photo fide; The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Orchids Pridgeon 1992 photo fide; Manual of Orchids Stewart 1995; Orchid Species Culture; Dendrobium Bakers 1996; Orchids of Papua New Guinea Millar 1999 photo fide; Dendrobium and its Relatives Lavarack, Harris and Stocker 2000 photo fide; Lindleyana Vol 17 No 1 2002; Botanica's Orchids 2002 photo fide; Flora Malesiana Orchids of New Guinea Vol II Shuiteman and de Vogel 2002; The Dendrobiums H. P. Wood 2006 photo fide; AOS Bulletin Vol 76 #10 2007 photo fide; AOS Bulletin vol 78 No 11 2009 photo fide;

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