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Manual of the New Zealand Flora.
1. Dendrobium, Swartz
1. Dendrobium, Swartz.
Epiphytes. Stems long and branching, or short; and simple and thick, sometimes reduced to pseudobulbs. Leaves coriaceous or fleshy, never plaited. Flowers often large and handsome, rarely small. Sepals nearly equal, the lateral ones dilated at the base, and obliquely adnate to the foot of the column, forming a short spur or pouch. Petals about as long as the upper sepal. Lip contracted at the base and adnate to the produced foot of the column, rarely clawed, usually 3-lobed; lateral lobes embracing the column or spreading; middle lobe broad or narrow, spreading or recurved; disc often lamellate. Column short, produced at the base, winged or angled or toothed at the top. Anther terminal, lid-like, 2-celled; pollinia 4, free, compressed, in collateral pairs in each cell.
A large genus of about 300 species, most abundant in the Malay Archipelago, but extending as far north as Japan, and southwards through Australia and Polynesia to New Zealand. The single species found in New Zealand is endemic, but is closely allied to the Polynesian D. biflorum, Swartz.
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D. Cunninghamii, Lindl. Bot. Reg. sub. t. 1756.—Stems usually much branched, slender, rigid, wiry, terete, polished, 1–4 ft. long; usually pendulous, but small specimens growing on rocks or in exposed places are often erect. Leaves numerous, distichous, alternate,¾–2 in. long, ⅙–⅕ in. broad, linear-lanceolate, acute, rigid and coriaceous, striate and more or less conspicuously 3-nerved; sheaths truncate, grooved and transversely corrugated. Peduncles shorter or longer than the leaves, usually 1–3-flowered, rarely 3–6-flowered; pedicels slender; bracts short. flowers ¾in. diam., white and pink. Upper sepal oblong-lanceolate, acute; lateral rather larger, broader at the base. Petals about equalling" the sepals, oblong, obtuse. Lip attached by a short claw to the foot of the column, 3-lobed; lateral lobes small, ascending; middle lobe spreading, large, almost as broad as long; margins undulate; disc with 4 or 5 thin lamellæ. Capsule oblong, ⅓ in. long.—A. Cunn. Precur. n. 316; Raoul, Choix, 41; Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 240; Handb. N.Z. FL 262. D. biflorum, A. Rich. Fl. Nouv. Zel. 167, t. 26 (not of Swartz). D. Lessonii, Col. in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xv. (1883) 326. North and South Islands, Stewart Island: Lowland districts from the North Cape southwards. Sea-level to 2000 ft. December–February. For some notes on the fertilisation, see a paper by Mr. G. M. Thomson in Trans. N.Z. Inst. xi. 419. I cannot separate Mr. Colenso's D. Lessonii from. the ordinary state of the plant, even as a variety. |