Frozen dendrobium - any hope?
 

Hello all,

I did something foolish. I have (or had) one dendrobium - Den. Anosmum "Little Sweet Scent" (which for some reason I thought was a nobile type until now). The temperatures in my area have been nice during the day, so I have taken a few plants outside to enjoy the sun. Well, I foolishly forgot to bring the dendrobium back in before nightfall, and it spent the night below freezing temperatures. Maybe around 25F at the lowest.

Before "the incident", it had a few old canes 1"-8" tall, one nice tall cane of about 12" and one fast-growing soft green cane of about 2". Now, the soft new cane is definitely dead. The tall cane is dropping the leaves, and has lost some of its rigidity.

The point of this post is, has anyone seen a dendrobium nobile grow a new cane from the roots after damage like this? Or is it like damaging a monopodial orchid - hurt the growth point, and it's over?

For a start, I would not consider Den anosmum to be a "nobile type". It's deciduous, but much more tropical in its origins. This new growth is lost, but it is very possible that the plant will survive - give it some warmth, and minimal water, no fertilizer until you see some new growth. With Dendrobiums, I never consider them dead until they stay dead for a year - a full growth cycle. They can really surprise you. But here, don't be disappointed if it doesn't come back... this is a warm-growing species, likely rather unhappy with the freeze. So maybe and maybe not.

Den nobile comes from fairly high elevations in the Himalaya foothills. Den anosmum comes from lower elevations in southeast Asia and the Philippines. So the problem here is conflating the two.

My post seems to have disappeared. You won't know for a while whether it survived. Don't cut off anything yet. Dead parts will fall off or will eventually turn brown and dry.

Thanks to you both! That's approximately what I suspected. I will not get my hopes up, but I won't throw it out yet either.

Thanks also for the correction on the type. I noticed that temperatures down into the low 40s didn't seem like any problem. I never planned on testing it below 32F... oh well.

Definitely don't give up on it - and follow the advice from ES, don't cut anything either. Just let it be, it no doubt was set back but just keep it cozy and it may surprise you.