Posts from — August 2008

I am mainly looking for info on the Dendrobium Noble orchid. It is a kind of purple blue color. I have looked in a lot of places but cant seem to find the answers.

Umm, orchids are VERY long lived plants, some of the original specimens discovered and collected in the 1700s and 1800s are still around. Many people have willed their orchid collections to their heirs because well cared for orchids are practically immortal, according to some. Some grow for so long and get so huge that the tree they live on literally collapses!
Dendrobium nobile is an epiphyte (air plant). It, like many orchids, has pseudobulbs, where it stores water and nutrients. Like all orchids, it has a specialized combination of stigma and anthers called a column, which is located adjacent to a speciallized petal called a lip. And the pollen is carried not as dust like most flowers, but as little blobs called pollinia. The adaptations for pollination are as varied as the orchid family: the genus Orphys uses pseudocoupulatory polination (the male insect thinks that the flower is a female and tries to mate with it), and some genera shoot their pollen when something touches the flower. The seeds are the smallest seed known: all they are is a plant embryo in a papery husk. They need their mychorizal fungi to germinate, otherwise they wouldn't get the right nutrients. (It is possible with modern tecnology to germinate orchids without fungus, but that is usually done in a laboratory). One of the really cool adaptations of the epiphytic orchids is vellamen (not sure how you spell it). It's a layer of white tissue that grows on the outside of the roots. When wet, it turns clear and exposes the green tissue below, so that the plant can photosynthesize with its roots.