Quote:
Originally Posted by tom499  Dendrobium amabile syn furcatum (I hope thats right  ) |
Well.....very close but not quite. The abbreviation "syn" means
synonym and refers to defunct other names for a given species. As you probably know, in the heyday of orchid collection and description multiple taxonomists described the same plants, often without knowledge of what the other taxonomists were publishing. Since this was before mass communication, individual species often ended up with more than one name. The "rules" of botanical nomenclature say whoever names the plant first "wins." So the name first published becomes the official name and all of the other names become
synonyms, obsolete names for the same plant. The term "synonym" or the abbreviation "syn" never appears in a name and is not part of a botanical name like "variety" ("var") or "forma" ("f").
With your plant, the correct name is:
Dendrobium furcatum.
Let's see how your Den blooms out. i suspect it might not be furcatum for 2 reasons: 1) Den furcatum is not at all common in cultivation. I've never seen one at a show and don't recall ever seeing one for sale. The Lavarrick/Harris/Stocker book on Dens confirms its rarity in cultivation; and 2) the culture recommendations don't as all match what you were told about the plant.
Both the Lavarrick/Harris/Stocker book and the Baker & Baker Dendrobium Species Culture book describe the plant as a warm growing Den, with night time minimum temps of 16-17C. It comes from one of the Indonesian islands where the temperatures and rainfall is very even all year round. Den furcatum should be kept evenly moist all year round wiht a slight drying between waterings after flowering.