I appears that we are celebrating ‘Dendrobium Week’ with lots of wonderful species flowering together in our Warm Asia section. To follow Monday’s Dendrobium aphyllum we have Dendrobium farmeri. This species belongs to section densiflorum and so produces its flowers on pendulous spikes from near the top of club shaped pseudobulbs.

Dendrobium farmeri is easily distinguished from similar species by the pink ground to the flowers that have a very prominent deep yellow/orange centre to the lip. With us plants flower from April through to June although individual spikes only last a week.

Dendrobium farmeri is found from Sikkim to South East Asia and we have seen it growing at an altitude of 500m on large boulders in West Bengal near Kalimpong in full sun where it would experience hot wet summers and dryer cooler winters. We grow the species in baskets to show off the long pendulous flower spike as they appear in nature.