Dendrobium anosmum

Dendrobium anosmum flowers produces a wonderfully sweet fragrance which is described as “raspberry jam” by Peter O'Byrne in his book A to Z of South East Asian Orchid Species.

I have the purple variety. This plant also has a version, which has white sepals and petals and a purple throat. The white ones can be found in the orchidarium of the NOG at Singapore Botanic Gardens.

This plant is native to Malaysia, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. This plant is deciduous and the ones in my garden blooms once a year between February to April. I would consider this plant easy to grow and does well in my garden. It is best mounted on fern bark or just a slab of wood so that there is no need to worry about supporting the long slender canes and they look wonderful hanging down. The canes would loose their leaves just before setting buds. The flowers generally last about 2 weeks to 3 weeks tops. Shortly after flowering, new growths are seen at the base on the mounts or sometimes keikis are seen along the canes as well.

Books I read has advised to cut back watering from October to give it a dry spell and induce bud setting. Resume normal watering and fertilizing after flowers have faded and when new growths are seen at the base of the plant. The new growths will become long slender canes up to a meter in length if well taken care of. They will bear between 8 – 10 flowers in the next season.