Students heading to Sarawak in tow weeks are busy familiarising themselves with the orchid species they may encounter in the forests they visit. Malaysia has a great diversity of Dendrobium species and this lovely miniature dendrobium, native to Thailand and Peninsular Malaya, grows in warm lowland forest at around 100m altitude. In this habitat it will experience year round warm temperatures and little seasonal variation. It is not strongly deciduous though only seems to flower from nodes along the newer pseudobulbs. We will be looking out for similar species in the forests around Kuching and Mulu National park.

The plant shown first flowered from tiny 2.5cm bulbs but this year they have now grown to 5cm and produced a lot more flowers. It is still one of the smallest dendrobiums we grow and we expect it to make a stunning ball or growths in time.

The species naturally grows a little warmer than we keep our Warm Asia section (Min 18C) so we grow the species high up in the greenhouse (where it is warmest) but shaded throughout the year. We spray it daily and as you can see it produces lots of roots that cling to its bark mount..