Dendrobium palpebrae

[Dorsetman]

A first flowering of a plant I bought almost 2 years ago. Gave it a very hard dry rest for some 6 months to get these flowers ! Obviously closely related to D.densiflorum - even squarer canes . But the difference is given away by the name - to all latin students - palpebrae looks to me ( my latin comes only from my orchids) like palpate , which is what a doctor does when he probes your tummy looking for lumps or pains. If you palpate this - a bit more gently than your doc; please (!) you will find that the lip in particular is rough - covered with fine but not specially soft hairs - indeed you can see little fringes of them everywhere on the flower. D.densiflora lacks these.
Presumably these flowers are pollinated by some bee or the like which enjoys having its tummy tickled, too !
I shall start watering as the flowers fade - have already given it a good fine spraying - I hope the canes will plump again.

[Chris in Hamilton]

Very nice Geoff! I find the 1st spring watering's very dangerous.

[JDT]

Beautiful, they even sparkle!!

[catttan]

LOvely. Well done for blooming this beauty.

[ksriramkumar]

Wow. Looks awesome!!.

[Sheryl]

That's gorgeous. I wish I understood this drying out period better. Only certain orchids, length of time etc. So much still to learn.

[Dorsetman]

So much still to learn.

After 56 years of orchid growing, I can still say the Same.
It's part of the enjoyment of this hobby.

[Chris in Hamilton]

That's gorgeous. I wish I understood this drying out period better. Only certain orchids, length of time etc. So much still to learn.

Sometimes plants that are supposed to rest, misbehave and don't. I have two Laelia rubescens. A pink and a semi-alba. They flower in the winter and are supposed to take a 6-8 week rest when they finish. The previous three years they did just that. This year for some reason they started putting out new roots before the spikes had even finished. Now both have almost doubled in size, the pink one is in spike and will flower again in about a month. Very uncooperative!