Dendrobium glabrum

Dendrobium glabrum, commonly known as the creeping star orchid, is a species of epiphytic orchid native to New Guinea and Australia. It has shiny pseudobulbs with a single leathery leaf and white, star-shaped flowers with yellow tips. It forms large clumps on trees in humid forests.

Description

Dendrobium glabrum is an epiphytic herb that has shiny, yellowish green pseudobulbs long and wide. There is a single leathery leaf long and wide with a papery bract at its base. Short-lived, star-shaped white flowers with yellowish tips long and wide are produced in leaf axils on a thin stalk about long. The sepals are long and about wide, the petals slightly longer but only half as wide. The labellum is about long and wide with wavy edges near its base and two ridges along its midline. Flowering occurs sporadically and the flowers only last a few hours.

Taxonomy and naming

Dendrobium glabrum was first formally described in 1907 by Johannes Jacobus Smith and the description was published in Bulletin du Département de l'Agriculture aux Indes Néerlandaises. The specific epithet is a Latin word meaning "smooth".

Distribution and habitat

The creeping star orchid grows on trees in humid forest in New Guinea and on the Cape York Peninsula as far south as Cairns.