Dendrobium monophyllum
Dendrobium monophyllum, commonly known as lily-of-the-valley orchid, is an epiphytic or lithophytic orchid in the family Orchidaceae. It has pale green to yellowish pseudobulbs with one or two leaves, and between five and twenty bell-shaped yellow flowers. It grows in rainforest in New South Wales and Queensland, Australia.
Description
Dendrobium monophyllum is an epiphytic or lithophytic herb that usually forms clumps. Its pseudobulbs are pale green to yellowish, long and in diameter and furrowed. The pseudobulb has one or two thin, bright green leaves long, wide on the end. Between five and twenty resupinate, bell-shaped, yellow flowers wide are borne on a flowering stem long. The dorsal sepal is egg-shaped, long and about wide. The lateral sepals are triangular, long and about wide. The petals are long and about wide. The labellum is about long, wide and blunt with two ridges along its midline. Flowering occurs from August to December.
Taxonomy and naming
Dendrobium monophyllum was first formally described in 1859 by Ferdinand von Mueller from a specimen collected near Moreton Bay by William Hill. The description was published in Fragmenta phytographiae Australiae. The specific epithet is a Latinization of the ancient Greek word monophyllon, derived from the ancient Greek words monos meaning "single" or "alone" and phyllon meaning "leaf".
Lily-of-the-valley orchid grows on trees, rocks and cliffs and on well-lit upper branches of rainforest trees between the Atherton Tableland in Queensland and Grafton in New South Wales.