The Six Horticultural Groups of Dendrobium

[WhiteRabbit]

Originally Posted by greenpassion

What is a lythophyte??

Grows on rocks, rocky surfaces.

Bright light, lightly moist media, cool temps at night in late summer - autumn. I do not give a dry winter rest (mine is growing spikes in winter), but do keep it slightly drier, especially during especially cold weather (nights approaching, our teaching freezing).

There are many threads regarding kingianum culture - you can search the board (using the search function - search "kingianum")

Originally Posted by greenpassion

What is a lythophyte??

[Louisa]

Randy, Louisa here...last post of yours I saw was Dec. of 2005, are you still on the board? New to orchids - bought Dendrobium aggregatum last Saturday, Mar. 21, 2015. Have lots of questions. Please let me know if you are still available. Thanks.

[dreamerfb2]

Well! So here I am on page four and know no more now than when I began, except: seems no one knows anything about Dendobriums! I bought a lovely orchid today at the farm store and made sure to ask "what kind?" She said Dendobrium, so I said "thanks.", knowing where I could go to get the info I needed. It had no tags of any kind, and, NOW, I see I should have said "No thanks!". So I took pictures, trying to figure out how to get them to you now; I KNOW beyond a doubt that it needs to be cleaned up and repotted, but the question is, should I wait for the blooms to stop, or can it be redone "in bloom"?

(I wonder where the pictures went....)

[dreamerfb2]

Ok, so I get one photo per submission. Here's roots....

[estación seca]

Originally Posted by dreamerfb2

...I bought a lovely orchid today at the farm store and made sure to ask "what kind?..."

It's a Dendrobium phalaenopsis hybrid. You can read about those here on the Board.

[derv88]

Is there a cross-reference somewhere of all Dens starting at the genus level and working forward?

Someone, somewhere down the line, had to put all of this information together in a cross reference or matrix.

Lumping these thousands of species into 5 or 6 categories probably is an inexact science. I am looking to completely understand the very specific cultural requirements of each of my Dens individually.

[estación seca]

This doesn't exist, because so many new species have been discovered, and most botanists aren't as focused on growing plants as we are.

What I do:
Look up herbarium records for each of your plants. Many have a locality. Find the locality on a map.

Look up the climate for that locality.

See whether you can find information on how your plant grows in the wild - on the forest floor in deep shade in leaf litter? On mossy rock slopes facing the sun?

Now comes the hard part. Think about what it would be like for a plant in that climate in that microniche throughout the year.

[calvin_orchidL]

Originally Posted by derv88

Is there a cross-reference somewhere of all Dens starting at the genus level and working forward?

Someone, somewhere down the line, had to put all of this information together in a cross reference or matrix.

Lumping these thousands of species into 5 or 6 categories probably is an inexact science. I am looking to completely understand the very specific cultural requirements of each of my Dens individually.

That's why it's better to grow species just kidding. To be honest, if you're talking about hybrids, most will grow just fine as long as you can figure out which group the majority of the parentage belongs to. There's no need to complicate things.

And if you're growing species, then there is a host of information for specific species on the internet just a google search away.

[derv88]

Thank you so much for this information!

[Mon45]

thanks for sharing Ross