Labeled as Den. kingianum but is that correct...?
 

I ordered on eBay an orchid named Dendrobium kingianum. There was no picture of the actual plant. Today it arrived, well packed and unharmed :-)

Now I have the plant here I wonder if it really is Den. kingianum? The canes seem so short?
Here are some pictures of the plant I received. What do you think? It came and is in a 5 inch pot.

It seems pretty wet in this picture but it just got watered. On arival it was loos in its pot and as the medium was pretty tight I switched it to a pot with additional holes in it. When it starts new growth I'll do a complete repot on this baby.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3306/...270336543a.jpg


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3559/...ffc7af82de.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3535/...dbc3ff9376.jpg

This is what I've found on: Larch Hill Orchids - Dendrobium Kingianum

Never read this before, is this true?

Dendrobium kingianum is found in both northern and southern areas and thus has two different clones, a tall clone which is the most common one in culture and a short clone which gives more compact plants. In addition to all this D. kingianum throws keikiis like crazy and even keikiis will blossom.

I have the twin to yours .. Looks like a kingi to me :) and a very pretty one .. Gin

I didn't know that there were two different shapes of kingianums! The only ones I've ever seen (mine included) have tall narrow caned and thiner leaves. I was going to suggest that it was a kingianum hybrid, but maybe you guys are right!

Gin, can I have a picture please?????:waving

Are you sure your's labeled correctly?

Curious what others have to say about it. King or not, I like the plant itself, now waiting for the blooms. I hope they smell as promissed.

Nicole

I didn't know there were two types either!
But I have the short one!
Very nice looking plant Bluezz!

Its growth habit and buds as well as the keikis look like kingianum to me, but the flowers will show better what it is when they open.
Dendrobium kingianum on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

There's nothing to suggest its not a kingianum.

RE: two clones of kingianum: tall and short.

This is not really accurate, kingianum is variable in flower and growth habit across it's range. The cane length can range from around 5-50cm. There are some very short forms expecially in the NSW populations but the sheer variability across the range means that you couldn't really broadly categorise them into either short or tall forms.

Mine came from Andy's at a show , i am sure it is labeled right .

This a fairly broad statement that is true in certain respects. I wouldn't say it was totaly accurate. There are long canes and short canes, ones that throw lots of keikis and some don't. This mainly applies to the wild collected species and as many of those plants exist in collections, the generally available clones today are usually man made out crossings of the better clones. The plant pictured could be a wild collected plant but is more likely a man made crossing. Sometimes the only difference is the flower color between wild and nursery produced as the flower shape can be similar. The cane length is irrelevant today as there have been short cane x long cane crossings around for decades. One big difference between short cane and the long is flower count, the short cane plants generally have fewer flowers, 5 +/- and shorter spikes against long spikes with up to 9 - 12 flowers.