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Pinecone Dendrobium
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Pinecone Dendrobium
P Native Photo: Chon C.
Common name: Pinecone Dendrobium
Botanical name: Dendrobium thyrsiflorum    Family: Orchidaceae (Orchid family)
Synonyms: Callista thyrsiflora, Dendrobium densiflorum var. alboluteum

Pinecone Dendrobium is a small to large sized, cool growing orchid with beautiful hanging pinecone-like clusters of crystalline white flowers with a bright yellow lip. The plant grows on trees, rocks or on the ground. It is found in humid, mossy mixed and coniferous forests. The plant has slender, ridged, rounded, club-shaped stem which is yellowish towards the tip. The plant carries 5-7, persistent, smooth, flexible, dark green leaves, which are inverted-lanceshaped, 9-16 x 2.4-5 cm, leathery, base not decurrent into clasping sheaths, but narrowed into a stalk about 6 mm, tip pointed. The plant blooms in the spring on a pendant, 30 cm long, densly several to many (30-50) fragrant flowered raceme that arise from near the tip of the cane. Flowers are spreading, thin; sepals and petals white, sometimes flushed pink especially below, lip golden yellow, column white, foot pale yellow, anther cap white. Pinecone Dendrobium is found in Chinese Himalayas, Hainan China, eastern Himalayas, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam at elevations of 1200-2000 m.

Identification credit: Tabish Photographed in Ukhrul, Manipur.

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