__NOTOC__ ''Dendrochilum'' (commonly abbreviated ''Ddc.'' in

horticulture Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

) is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

epiphytic An epiphyte is an organism that grows on the surface of a plant and derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, water (in marine environments) or from debris accumulating around it. The plants on which epiphytes grow are called phoroph ...

lithophytic Lithophytes are plants that grow in or on rocks. They can be classified as either epilithic (or epipetric) or endolithic; epilithic lithophytes grow on the surfaces of rocks, while endolithic lithophytes grow in the crevices of rocks (and are als ...

and a few

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on or near the ground, as opposed to ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s in the

orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowerin ...

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

(Orchidaceae). The name of this genus is derived from

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic p ...

words ("tree"), and either ("lip")Schubert, R., & Wagner, G. (1988). ''Botanisches Wörterbuch'' (9th edition). Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer. or ("green food"), alluding to either the flowers' large lip or to their epiphytic growth. These orchids are popular among fans of non-traditional orchid curiosities.

Distribution and description

They are distributed at higher elevations in the humid rainforests throughout the

Malesia Malesia is a biogeographical region straddling the Equator and the boundaries of the Indomalayan and Australasian realms, and also a phytogeographical floristic region in the Paleotropical Kingdom. It has been given different definitions. Th ...

n region, with some in the surrounding lands; thus they occur from

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

. But most species are found on

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java, west of Sulawesi, and ea ...

or the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

.Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
/ref> This genus produces miniature, fragrant, star-shaped

flower A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants (plants of the division Angiospermae). The biological function of a flower is to facilitate reproduction, usually by providing a mechani ...

s that are generally produced in two rows on erect or arching pendant, many-flowered racemes. These

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem, stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphology (biology), Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of sperma ...

s can grow to a length of (e.g. in the Hay-scented Orchid, ''D. glumaceum''). The stems are ovoid to cylindrical, striped, sharply reduced

pseudobulb The pseudobulb is a storage organ found in many epiphytic and terrestrial sympodial orchids. It is derived from a thickening of the part of a stem between leaf nodes and may be composed of just one internode or several, termed heteroblastic and ...

s, about long, with green to brown bracts at their base. Each carries one or two tough, erect and lanceolate leaves, usually about long, with narrow petioles. The elliptical leaves of the Long-leaved Dendrochilum ('' D. longifolium'') may grow to a length of .

Taxonomy

The precise number of species is disputed; many websites accept as few as 100 or so, while others recognize far more. The World Checklist of Monocotyledons for example lists 390 records, including names that have become synonyms. Numerous new

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; plural taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular nam ...

have become known in recent decades;e.g. Pedersen (1997), Wood (1997) in the ''Dendrochilum'' species list on Wikipedia, a more split-up approach is followed pending more up-to-date information. For it seems that the very low species numbers are certainly gross overlumping, and while the very high numbers sometimes presented are probably a result of oversplitting, they are likely to be closer to the truth. Many of these orchids (67 species in the list used here) were named by

Johannes Jacobus Smith Johannes Jacobus Smith (Antwerp 29 June 1867 – Oegstgeest 14 January 1947) (sometimes written as Joannes Jacobus Smith) was a Dutch Botany, botanist who, between years 1905 to 1924, crossed the islands of the Dutch East Indies (mainly Java (isl ...

, an eminent Dutch botanist. The genus'

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specime ...

, described by

Carl Ludwig Blume Charles Ludwig de Blume or Karl Ludwig von Blume (9 June 1796, Braunschweig – 3 February 1862, Leiden) was a German- Dutch botanist. He was born at Braunschweig in Germany, but studied at Leiden University and spent his professional life wor ...

in 1825, is '' Dendrochilum aurantiacum'' of

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

and Sumatra. Several species were formerly separated in ''Acoridium'' (established by

Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck (14 February 1776 – 16 March 1858) was a prolific Germany, German botanist, physician, zoologist, and natural philosopher. He was a contemporary of Goethe and was born within the lifetime of Carl Li ...

and Franz Julius Ferdinand Meyen in 1843) or ''Platyclinis'' (established by

George Bentham George Bentham (22 September 1800 – 10 September 1884) was an English botanist, described by the weed botanist Duane Isely as "the premier systematic botanist of the nineteenth century". Born into a distinguished family, he initially studie ...

in 1881), but these two taxa are nowadays regarded as synonyms of ''Dendrochilum''.

Selected species

* '' Dendrochilum anfractum'' * '' Dendrochilum aurantiacum'' * '' Dendrochilum cobbianum'' * '' Dendrochilum cootesii'' * '' Dendrochilum glumaceum'' * '' Dendrochilum ignisiflorum'' * '' Dendrochilum javieriense'' * '' Dendrochilum longifolium'' * '' Dendrochilum magnum''

Footnotes

References

* (1995): The genus ''Dendrochilum. In: Orchids Australia''. * (2004): The genus ''Dendrochilum''. ''In:'' : ''Genera Orchidacearum'' (Vol. 3). Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. * (2002): ''Dendrochilum: elegance in miniature''. ''Orchid Review'' 110(1246): 212-217. * (1997): The genus ''Dendrochilum'' (Orchidaceae) in the Philippines – a taxonomic revision. ''Opera Botanica'' 131: 5-205. * (1997): ''Orchids of Borneo'' (Vol.3: ''Dendrobium, Dendrochilum'' and others). Sabah Society, Kota Kinabalu and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q2720025 Arethuseae genera Epiphytic orchids