# Two Australian Dendro's



## Marc (Feb 17, 2013)

Dendrobium kingianum very vigorous grower and easy to bloom for me. To many flowers to count 












Dendrobium x delicatum


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## Dido (Feb 17, 2013)

nice one congrats on this beautys


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## wjs2nd (Feb 17, 2013)

Both are very nice. How do you grow yours?


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## cnycharles (Feb 17, 2013)

beautiful flowers, thanks for sharing


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## Ozpaph (Feb 17, 2013)

nicely grown


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## Rick (Feb 17, 2013)

Nice show!!


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## SlipperFan (Feb 17, 2013)

I love these!


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## NYEric (Feb 17, 2013)

Very nice. i have no luck w/ these.


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## s1214215 (Feb 18, 2013)

Beautiful.

Interestingly, I heard the opinion of a well known Australian botanist/taxonomist recently stating that Australia has no Dendrobiums except for one species only (didnt say what one). Others are related, but seperate genus's.

He is obviously not a lumper then hehehe.

Brett


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## emydura (Feb 18, 2013)

s1214215 said:


> Beautiful.
> 
> Interestingly, I heard the opinion of a well known Australian botanist/taxonomist recently stating that Australia has no Dendrobiums except for one species only (didnt say what one). Others are related, but seperate genus's.
> 
> ...



Yes, these are actually Thelychitons not Dendrobiums.


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## s1214215 (Feb 18, 2013)

I wonder what the singular Dend species is.

Is it only Thelychiton though? Or are there other genus's?


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## Ozpaph (Feb 19, 2013)

Dockrilla's were once dendrobiums........... (they do grow on a tree).


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## Marc (Feb 19, 2013)

Here is a link to a thread on OB.

http://www.orchidboard.com/community/scientific-matters/23535-dendrobiums-thelychitons.html

According to this thread it's based on DNA analysis so as far as I'm concerned we can throw this new classification in the garbage bin.

Theplantlist.org has this Thelychiton stuff listed as a synonym for Dendrobium kingianum

http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl/record/kew-58136


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## NYEric (Feb 19, 2013)

Do those people actually get paid to make these decisions/changes?!?


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## emydura (Feb 19, 2013)

Marc said:


> Here is a link to a thread on OB.
> 
> http://www.orchidboard.com/community/scientific-matters/23535-dendrobiums-thelychitons.html
> 
> ...



Our orchid society recognises Thelychiton. When I enter speciosums or kingianums into our shows it is always under Thelychiton, not Dendrobium. I'm seeing Thelychiton more and more in print, so eventually Dendrobium will fade out.

I know the guy who did the genetic work behind this classification. He is a pretty smart operator and really knows his stuff. He is both a grower and a scientist. I remember going to a talk of his which discussed why he split them up. It was a convincing argument. It was a long time ago so I can't remember the details. But I think the main gist of it is that some Dendrobiums were more closely related to orchids in other genera then they were to other Dendrobium species. So he had two options - lump these other genera into Dendrobium and create an even bigger genus or split them into multiple genera. 

The same thing happened with the closely related non-orchid genera Banksia and Dryandra. Genetic studies revealed that some Banksia's were more closely related to Dryandra's than other Banksia's. The taxonomist had the option of creating 6 or so new genera but decided to lump Dryandra's into Banksia's. I think this was the correct decision as there are only 130 or so species between the two groups and there ar a lot of similarities.

I think the decision to split the Dendrobiums into multiple genera was the correct one. The genus is enormous containg a bewildering array of orchids. It is hard for me to understand how a speciosum, softcane Dendrobium, Dockrillia or D. biggibum could belong in the same genus. They look incredibly different. I'm a lumper as a rule but even I couldn't support making the Dendrobium genus even larger.


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## JeanLux (Feb 20, 2013)

Very nice blooming Marc!!!! Do you keep them on your windowsill or cooler? Jean


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## Marc (Feb 20, 2013)

emydura said:


> Our orchid society recognises Thelychiton. When I enter speciosums or kingianums into our shows it is always under Thelychiton, not Dendrobium. I'm seeing Thelychiton more and more in print, so eventually Dendrobium will fade out.
> 
> I know the guy who did the genetic work behind this classification. He is a pretty smart operator and really knows his stuff. He is both a grower and a scientist. I remember going to a talk of his which discussed why he split them up. It was a convincing argument. It was a long time ago so I can't remember the details. But I think the main gist of it is that some Dendrobiums were more closely related to orchids in other genera then they were to other Dendrobium species. So he had two options - lump these other genera into Dendrobium and create an even bigger genus or split them into multiple genera.
> 
> ...



For the time being I wont support taxanomy based on DNA analysis, it seems to be surrounded by to much controversy. So I will just stick with using the databases that are provided by Kew and theplantlist.org 



JeanLux said:


> Very nice blooming Marc!!!! Do you keep them on your windowsill or cooler? Jean



I grow my Australian Dendro's in the following matter:

From May and onwards I grow them in the garden, I have them in hanging pots and hang these in a tree somewere in the center of the garden.
They remain there till the first frost is predicted during the night ( normally end of September beginning of October )
They are then moved inside on the windowsill of a southfacing window in an unheated room. I keep them as dry as possible, only when the bulbs start to shrivle I give them some water. This induces them to flower.
When the first buds start opening I move them to the windowsill of the kitchen, they remain there till they start dropping their flowers. They go back to the unheated room again till they can go outside.


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