My Dendrobium lindleyi: Where Did I Go Wrong????

[PhalPal]

I bought this last year at a show and the seller told me to stop watering it after Halloween (Oct 30). I kept it dry and under T5 lights until about three weeks ago. I sort of forgot about it and she never told me when to start watering it again! I didn't think about is until I started seeing these in full bloom just recently.
I have soaked it like crazy but the pbulbs aren't budging. Have I killed it? What do I do at this point to get it healthy enough to bloom next year????

[patticake]

I don't know much about this, but my guess would to have started watering it a little sooner. You've tried now, see what happens! Keep us posted...I'm sure some with a lot more experience, will hop on! I would say to give it water, and let it get used to being watered again. Gradually increase the water and fert.- Just a guess.

[kmarch]

I don't think you've killed it...yet...but it is severely dehydrated. I think there are a couple of problems here:

1) The name of this orchid is not Den aggregatum, it is Den lindleyi. Den aggregatum is an obsolete synonym.

2) The watering advice was either wrong from the start or was taken too literally. Here is a chart fo the average monthly rainfall (taken from Baker & Baker) this orchid receives in the wild:

Month (Northern Hemisphere) - Rain in inches
Jan - 0.3
Feb - 0.7
Mar - 1.3
Apr - 3.7
May - 11.8
Jun - 25.9
Jul - 32.2
Aug - 25.3
Sep - 21.2
Oct - 5.6
Nov - 0.5
Dec - 0.2

The first thing you'll notice is that while it receives very little rain from November to February, it does nonetheless receive some. So I think the advice to completely stop watering, while not completely off base, was not the best advice and has caused your plant to become dehydrated. My advice would be to:
1) water heavily from June through September (the plant will be actively growing during this time)
2) taper off watering in October
3) water very sparingly (but do water) from November through February - maybe only just a light watering when you notice the speudobulbs starting to shrivel
4) gradually increase watering from March through May.

[solay]

Mine isn't looking too good either. I kept watering through the winter though. I think mine is more of damaged roots from over watering.

Thanks for the info. on the watering chart and the name. Good to know.

[PhalPal]

Thanks a lot Kevin!! Your chart is very, very useful. The growers exact words were "don't give it a drop or it won't bloom for you." It was killing me not to water!! The pbulbs have never been plump; I thought it was just the way it was supposed to be. I soaked it in water overnight and it did not make one bit of difference. I'll keep watering it and we'll see what happens.

One more question.......does the lighting stay the same during the dormant period??????

[tansyflower]

You could try changing the bark, as it may have become water resistant, through it's enforced dry period.

[kmarch]

Regarding the lighting, because of the heavy rains (and therefore cloud cover) in the summer it gets much more light in winter than it does in summer. The temps are cooler in winter too (in the 40s F - nighttime lows). So winters cool, bright, and mostly dry, summers warm and wet.

[digitalgate]

I wouldnt worry about the plant. Only in the summer when you have high light and lots of rain. The bulb will bulge up. Right now if you soak it in water , it will refuse to do anything. Plus it take a period of 3 months of warm air to get it start to absorb water.
So in another words, water like no body business when summer arrive. By then it will throw out new keiki, get fat and refuse to flower.

[FLaCo]

Originally Posted by kmarch

I don't think you've killed it...yet...but it is severely dehydrated. I think there are a couple of problems here:

1) The name of this orchid is not Den aggregatum, it is Den jenkinsii. Den aggregatum is an obsolete synonym.

2) The watering advice was either wrong from the start or was taken too literally. Here is a chart fo the average monthly rainfall (taken from Baker & Baker) this orchid receives in the wild:

Month (Northern Hemisphere) - Rain in inches
Jan - 0.3
Feb - 0.7
Mar - 1.3
Apr - 3.7
May - 11.8
Jun - 25.9
Jul - 32.2
Aug - 25.3
Sep - 21.2
Oct - 5.6
Nov - 0.5
Dec - 0.2

The first thing you'll notice is that while it receives very little rain from November to February, it does nonetheless receive some. So I think the advice to completely stop watering, while not completely off base, was not the best advice and has caused your plant to become dehydrated. My advice would be to:
1) water heavily from June through September (the plant will be actively growing during this time)
2) taper off watering in October
3) water very sparingly (but do water) from November through February - maybe only just a light watering when you notice the speudobulbs starting to shrivel
4) gradually increase watering from March through May.

That is some great advice there Kevin.

[lmartiny]

OK. I'm confused. PhalPal ID'd her plant as a Den. Jenkinsii. We recently talked about Den. aggregatum in another thread. The plants don't look the same. Is Den aggregatum an obsolete name now? Here is a pict of Den aggregatum from Nov. when I got it.

[digitalgate]

aggregatum flower pure yellow and a larger than your flower. So your plant is definitely not aggregatum.

[kmarch]

It's Den jenkinsii (with a small "j" because it is a species not a hybrid) and if we referred to it in another thread as aggregatum then I must either have missed it or not have had complete presence of mind to catch it. They're the same plant the correct name of which is Den jenkinsii. I have corrected it in 2 or 3 other threads recently. The pictures posted in the threads I've corrected all look like jenkinsii to me as does the one posted in lmartiny's last post above.
-------------------
Note added March 22, 2009

I didn't get my ducks in a completely straight row. The plant people are frequently referring to as aggregatum is probably Den lindleyi and not Den jenkinsii. It is Den aggregatum var jenkinsii that is correctly called Den jenkinsii. I'll search for those threads and correct them as best I can. If you find one that you think might need correcting, please let me know. Apologies and thanks. -K

[Plucky Purcell]

Good luck with this one phalpal. It looks like it's still got some vigor left.

What size T5's are you running? How close to you have them to your plants? I was thinking of getting a 2' fixture for supplemental lighting, but it occurs to me that a T5 might be overkill.

[epiphyte]

I have both Dendrobium lindleyi/aggregatum and Dendrobium jenkinsii...yours looks a lot more like Dendrobium lindleyi/aggregatum...unless that basket is a lot smaller than I'm guessing. D. jenkinsii is considerably smaller than D. lindleyi.

This last Thursday I attended a lecture on the Dendrobiums of China organized by the San Gabriel Valley Orchid Hobbyists. Dr. Holger Perner mentioned that in addition to size, D. jenkinsii and D. lindleyi can be differentiated by the length of their inflorescence...D. lindleyi has a long one while D. jenkinsii has a short one. Care wise, he generalized that the Dendrobiums that require a rest experience hot, wet and humid summers and drier, cooler winters. He said that during winter he waters them just enough to prevent the pseudobulbs from shriveling too much.

Right now my D. jenkinsii and D. lindleyi aren't doing anything. I'm guessing that we haven't experienced warm enough temps to encourage spiking...but maybe they received too much water over the winter. Not sure which has a greater influence over their flowering...temperature or water. My guess is that it's temperature because as I recall they bloomed for me later in the season. I'm betting that any you saw in flower were greenhouse grown and experienced warmer temperatures a lot earlier on.

[kmarch]

Originally Posted by epiphyte

I have both Dendrobium lindleyi/aggregatum and Dendrobium jenkinsii...yours looks a lot more like Dendrobium lindleyi/aggregatum...unless that basket is a lot smaller than I'm guessing.

I started doing more research into the aggregatum/lindleyi and aggregatum/jenkinsii question and have discovered it to be a bit more involved than I originally anticipated involving different taxonomists (working individually) giving different plants the same name in some instances and giving different names to the same plant in other instances. If anyone is interested I'll take the time to sort it all out (but not until my orchestra piece is finished - it's due at the end of the month).

[myorchid]

Thanks Kevin. I also have a Den lindleyi (from Hoosier Orchids) it looks like Imartiny's pic only mine is a smaller plant. I gave it a cool dry winter and am now starting to water it.

[lmartiny]

Kevin, music first.
As to Den. aggregatum. I remain confused. Maybe I'll get a bloom and we can dertermine. I don't like all the name changes. Why do they keep doing that?

[kmarch]

This name quandry doesn't have anything to do with recent name changes. This was all sorted out years (decades) ago and it all has to do with sellers not knowing their species or not caring enough to get the right names and using a l o n g out of date name (aggregatum).

Now back to the music....

[elitebettas]

Hi,
Dendrobium aggregatum and Dendrobium jenkinsii are NOT the same plant and therefore one is not a "synonym" for the other. I have both and have bloomed both. Look at the picture below. D. aggregatum is on the left, D. jenkinsii on the right. D. jenkinsii is a MINIATURE Callista type Dendrobium. I believe the confusion is between D. aggregatum and D. lindleyli-there exists a debate on whether they are synonomous.
The trick is to give them a long, dry, BRIGHT rest period starting in fall. I did not give either a drop of water since Thanksgiving here in Florida and they both spiked and bloomed-even endured the freeze advisories we've had here. Your plant should do well. I know a nursery here that gives no rest period at all, they still bloom. Give yours lots of light and I'd go ahead and water as well. good luck Second pic is of my D.aggregatum on the left blooming in Feb.

[elitebettas]

By the way, Phalpal, you have Dendrobium aggregatum...

[kmarch]

Originally Posted by epiphyte

D. jenkinsii is considerably smaller than D. lindleyi.

Actually its just the other way around. Den jenkinsii is the larger of the 2 plants.
Den jenkinsii has pseudobulbs ranging from 3-5 inches long. leaves also 3-5 inches long, but has a rather short inflorescence that holds the flowers just beyond the leaves.

Den lindleyi on the other hand has pseudobulbs 2-4 inches long, leaves about 3 inches long, and a long, arching inflorescence, 6-12 inches long which holds the flowers well out from the plant.

But size alone isn't everything. Here's a rather more significant difference:

Den jenkinsii has inflorescences that come form the base of the pseudobulb and has few flowers per inflorescence, only 1-2.

Den lindleyi has inflorescences that come from nodes around the middle of the cane and have many flowers, 10-14 per inflorescence.

Keep an eye on them and see which inflorescence characteristics appear on which plant.

--------------------------

Now on to the aggregatum/lindleyi/jenkensii story. I was going to wait until the orchestra piece was finished but decided it was best to clear all this up now.


The story starts way back in 1816 with a guy by the name of C.S. Kunth (Carl Sigismund Kunth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) who described a species of orchid which he named Dendrobium aggregatum. A couple of decades later, in 1832 a different taxonomist, Roxburgh described an orchid which he also named Dendrobium aggregatum.

As it turns out, Kunth’s 1816 Den aggregatum was not a Dendrobium at all but instead was a Maxillaria and its name was changed to Maxillaria aggregata in 1832 (from what I can tell).

Which leaves us with Roxburgh’s 1832 Den aggregatum. Hold that thought for a moment.

A few years later, in 1840, von Steudel described Dendrobium lindleyi. At risk of oversimplifying the discussion that ensued on the similarities and differences between lindleyi and aggregatum, it has become generally accepted that they are indeed the same plant and the currently recognized name for this plant is Den lindleyi.

Originally Posted by elitebettas

By the way, Phalpal, you have Dendrobium aggregatum...

So PhalPal does not have Den aggregatum because that name is not accepted. PhalPal probably has Den lindleyi.

So the what about jenkinsii? In 1839 Nathaniel Wallich (Wall - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.) described an orchid which he named Den jenkinsii. As best I can figure from the reference materials I have handy, some years later (1898?) the same plant was described again by different taxonomists as Den aggregatum var jenkinsii. The currently accepted name for this orchid is now Den jenkinsii.

So my earlier claim that aggregatum is correctly called jenkinsii isn’t really right. It’s aggregatum var. jenkinsii that is correctly called Den jenkinsii. There remains little disagreement among the taxonomists I have looked at that Den aggregatum is correctly called Den lindleyi.

The complete picture is thus:
Den aggregatum (Roxb. 1832) is correctly called Den lindleyi
Den aggregatum var jenkinsii is correctly called Den jenkinsii
No species currently bears the name Den aggregatum

Elitebettas indicated that jenkinsii is a miniature dendrobium from the Callista section. This is also true for lindleyi which is generally smaller than jenkinsii. I agree that jenkinsii and lindleyi are different species so I suppose no further explanation is needed there.

It should be noted that size alone has never been a significant enough criteria to warrant classifying 2 plants as different species. The size of a plant or the length of its inflorescence can be highly variable within a species and can be affected dramatically both in the wild and in cultivation by culture.

References: Charles & Margaret Baker, Orchid Species Culture: Dendrobium; Laverick, Harris & Stocker, Dendrobium and its Relatives; Kew Gardens, World Checklist of Monocotyledons.

[digitalgate]

humbled....

[epiphyte]

elitebettas, your Dendrobium lindleyi and Dendrobium jenkinsii look exactly like mine do.

Here's a chart comparing the average temperatures of Orlando Florida to those of Placentia California. Orlando experiences an average high temperature of 73F in February while Placentia does not experience an average high temperature of 73F until May. So if avg high temperatures are a significant factor in determining blooming times (as well as growth) then, assuming equal levels of light, PhalPal's Dendrobium lindleyi shouldn't bloom until May.

28.55N | 118 ft | Orlando, FL --- 33.7N | 56 ft | Placentia, CA

Sources: Orchid Culture, Weather Reports,Temperature Charts

[solay]

Thank you for clarifying that Kevin and putting your music on hold for us. I was so confused at first. OK, so I have a Den. lindleyi.
After reading this thread I went to check out my Den. What a surprise!!! It's got 3 spikes that I never noticed while watering. I thought it was not doing too well since the psuedo bulbs were wrinkled. Of course it's hanging in a corner of the G/H that I don't pay much attention to. The inflorescence is coming from the middle of the psuedo bulb confirming it's Den. lindleyi. Mine was tagged Den. aggregatum.

[digitalgate]

this is so exciting..spike

[kmarch]

Originally Posted by solay

The inflorescence is coming from the middle of the psuedo bulb confirming it's Den. lindleyi. Mine was tagged Den. aggregatum.

Yup, as we've seen aggregatum is an obsolete synonmy for lindleyi and the infloresence is certainly coming from a midpoint on the cane, and....WOW, look how many buds you have! Den lindleyi is many flowered too! I can't wait to see your pictures!!!

[kmarch]

Originally Posted by elitebettas

Look at the picture below. D. aggregatum is on the left, D. jenkinsii on the right.

elitebettas, The plant you have pictured on the right, the one with yellow flowers is definitely not Den jenkinsii. Den jenkinsii is the larger of the two species, bears short inflorescences that hold only a few flowers (1-2) just beyond the leaves. It's Den lindleyi that has long, many flowered inflorescences held well out from the plant. It also looks like the spikes are coming form a midpoint on the cane. Den lindleyi blooms from this point, not jenkinsii. Not being in bloom I can't comment on the plant in the right hand picture, but the one on the left is lindleyi.

[elitebettas]

The plant I have pictured blooming, I identified as D.aggregatum, or as this forum states~D.lindleyi, never described the flowering pic as D. jenkinsii lol