Dendrobium purpureum (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia
Introduction

Protologue: Fl. ind. (Carey ed.) 3: 484 (1832).

Vernacular names

Native to northern Sulawesi, the Moluccas, Kai Islands & Aru Islands; widely cultivated as an ornamental.

In eastern Malaysia and Indonesia the crushed and heated leaves are poulticed on infected nails, for cooling and maturing.

A large herb, stems pendulous, elongate-fusiform, terete, 60-150 cm long.
Leaves lanceolate, 6-13 cm × 1.5-2.5 cm, apex obtuse, slightly emarginate, keeled beneath.
Racemes usually from leafless stems, dense, globose or semiglobose, many-flowered.
Flowers up to 3 cm in diameter, bright to pale purple, rarely white, sepals and petals with an acute, green top, dorsal sepal ovate-oblong, 4.5-7 mm × 2-2.7 mm, thickened at base, lateral ones similar, broader, up to 15 mm long, petals obliquely elliptical lanceolate, 5 mm × 2 mm, margin minutely ciliate, lip somewhat constricted below the middle, sides more or less incurved, 7-10 mm × 2.5-5 mm, fused at base with column-foot.

D. purpureum occurs naturally in mixed forest, often on ridges, from sea-level up to 900 m altitude.

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