Dendrobium is a genus of mostly Epiphyte and Lithophyte in the family Orchidaceae. It is a very large genus, containing more than 1,800 species that are found in diverse habitats throughout much of South Asia, East Asia and southeast Asia, including China, Japan, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, New Guinea, Vietnam and many of the islands of the Pacific Islands. Orchids in this genus have roots that creep over the surface of trees or rocks, rarely having their roots in soil. Up to six leaves develop in a tuft at the tip of a shoot and from one to a large number of flowers are arranged along an unbranched flowering stem. Several attempts have been made to separate Dendrobium into smaller genera, but most have not been accepted by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families.
Description
Dendrobium species are mostly
Epiphyte, or
Lithophyte although a few species are terrestrial. They are
sympodial Herbaceous plant with cylindrical roots usually arising from the base of a
pseudobulb. The pseudobulbs, when present, are hard, sometimes cane-like, cylindrical or cone-shaped and more or less covered with the bases of the leaves. There are from one to many leaves arranged in two ranks, the leaves varying in shape from linear to oblong, sometimes cylindrical but never channelled or grooved. They are usually much longer than wide and last for only a single season.
Between one and a large number of Resupination or non-resupinate flowers are arranged along an unbranched flowering stem and may be short or long-lived. The flowers may be white, green, yellow, or pink to purple, often with contrasting colours in the labellum. The and are usually free from and more or less similar to each other but markedly different from the labellum. The labellum is more or less egg-shaped, with the narrower end towards the base and flanks the column. There is often a callus consisting of narrow, parallel ridges, in the centre of the labellum.
Taxonomy and naming
The genus
Dendrobium was first formally described in 1799 by
Olof Swartz and the description was published in
Nova Acta Regiae Societatis Scientiarum Upsaliensis.
The name
Dendrobium is derived from the
ancient Greek words
dendron meaning "tree" and
bios meaning "life", referring to the epiphytic habit of most species.
In 1981, Friedrich Brieger reclassified all terete-leaved dendrobiums from Australia and New Guinea into a new genus Dockrillia, and in 2002 David Jones and Mark Clements separated the genus into smaller genera, including Thelychiton, Tropilis, Vappodes and Winika, but all of these genera are regarded as synonyms by the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families.
Sections
The genus Dendrobium was first divided into sections for infrageneric classification by Rudolf Schlechter in 1911–1914 based on morphological characteristics. Later on DNA markers were used to define the sections from work by Yukawa and colleagues from 1993 to 2001.
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Amblyanthus
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Aporum
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Breviflora
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Brevisaccata
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Bolbodium
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Calcarifera
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Calyptrochilus
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Crumenata
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Conostalix
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Dendrobium
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Dendrocoryne
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Densiflora
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Distichophyllae
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Dolichocentrum
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Formosae
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Fytchianthe
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Grastidium
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Herbacea
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Herpethophytum
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Holochrysa
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Latouria
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Microphytanthe
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Pedilonum
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Phalaenanthe
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Platycaulon
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Rhizobium
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Spatulata
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Stachyobium
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Stuposa
Distribution and habitat
Orchids in the genus
Dendrobium have adapted to a wide variety of habitats, from the high altitudes in the
Himalayas mountains to lowland tropical forests and even to the dry climate of the Australian desert.
Uses
Use in horticulture
Dendrobium is abbreviated as
Den. by the Royal Horticultural Society.
Some species are in great demand by
Orchidelirium. This has resulted in numerous varieties and hybrids, such as the
noble dendrobium (
Den. nobile) breeds, which have greatly extended the range of colours of the original plant from the
. The flowers of
Dendrobium stratiotes are known to remain fresh for nine months.
Many Dendrobium species are known to filter toluene and xylene from the air.[Wolverton (1996)]
Several hybrids in this genus have been registered and given cultivar names after notable persons and institutions:
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Dendrobium 'Ismail Sabri Yaakob'
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Dendrobium 'Bae Yong-joon'
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Dendrobium 'SCCCI 100th Anniversary'
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Dendrobium 'Margaret Thatcher'
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Dendrobium 'Iriana'
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Dendrobium 'Joseph Schooling'
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Dendrobium 'Yip Pin Xiu'
The grex Dendrobium Berry gx
Medicinal uses
Some
Dendrobium species are cultivated as medicinal plants.
The
noble dendrobium (
D. nobile) for example is one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine, where it is known as
shí hú () or
shí hú lán ().
The 1889 book 'The Useful Native Plants of Australia records that Dendrobium canaliculatum was called "yamberin" by the Indigenous People of Queensland, Australia and that "The bulbous stems, after being deprived of the old leaves are edible (Thozet)."
In culture
Many species and
of this genus are well-known
and have been figured in artwork. Among the former are:
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Dendrobium formosum (beautiful giant-flowered dendrobium) – emblem of Ranong Province (Thailand)
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Dendrobium 'Kim il Sung' (Kimilsungia) – emblem of North Korea
[Soediono, Noes, Arditti, Joseph and Soediono, Rubismo. Kimilsungia: How an Indonesian Orchid Became a Revered Symbol in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea After Its Name was Changed. Plant Science Bulletin 75 3 pp. 103-113]
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Dendrobium moniliforme (Sekikoku) – emblem of Matsushima, Miyagi (Japan)
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Dendrobium nobile (noble dendrobium) – emblem of Sikkim (India)
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Dendrobium bigibbum (Cooktown orchid, anggrek larat) – emblem of Maluku province (Indonesia) and Queensland (Australia).
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Dendrobium utile
The Cooktown orchid was figured on Australian Postage stamp in 1968 and 1998, and flowers of several Dendrobium greges are depicted on the obverse side of the Singapore Orchid Series currency notes issued between 1967 and 1976:
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Dendrobium Marjorie Ho – S$10
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Dendrobium Shangri-La – S$500
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Dendrobium Kimiyo Kondo – S$1000
The golden-bow dendrobium ( D. chrysotoxum), colloquially called fried-egg orchid was one of the species grown by the fictional private detective and orchid fancier Nero Wolfe, and plays a role in The Final Deduction.
==Gallery==
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Clements, M.A. (1989): Catalogue of Australian Orchidaceae. Australian Orchid Research 1: 45–64.
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Wolverton, B.C. (1996): How to Grow Fresh Air. New York: Penguin Books.
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Lavarack, B., Harris, W., Stocker, G. (2006): Dendrobium and Its Relatives. Australia: Simon & Schuster Ltd.
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Burke, J.M., Bayly, M.J., Adams, P.B., Ladiges, P.Y.: (2008) Molecular phylogenetic analysis of Dendrobium (Orchidaceae), with emphasis on the Australian section Dendrocoryne, and implications for generic classification. Australian Systematic Botany 21: 1–14. Abstract
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