Smithsonian Gardens

Common name: Alexandra's Dendrobium, Alexandra's Dragon Orchid

Family: Orchidaceae subfam. Epidendroideae (Orchid)

Distribution: Papua New Guinea

Habitat: Cool mist forests; 3280-3940ft (1000-1200m)

Life form: Epiphytic

Bloom Time (northern hemisphere): October to February

Bloom characteristics: Inflorescence is 6-10" (15-25 cm) long with 3-7 green-white flowers with brown markings on lip. Flowers are 2-3" (5-7.6 cm) across, and rarely 4" (10 cm) across.

Foliage characteristics: Bluish-green

Pollination syndrome: Possibly wasp

Fragrance: Honey

Description: Alexandra’s Dendrobium began its European debut as something of an enigma. Collected in 1909 by the German orchidologist Rudolf Schlechter, he named it for his wife Alexandra, who assisted in compiling the account of his New Guinea orchid collecting. It is fortunate that drawings were made of this orchid, because after Schlechter brought the orchid back to the greenhouse of their Berlin estate, both the orchid and the pressed type specimen at the Berlin Herbarium were destroyed in the bombings of World War II. Given this orchid’s similarity to D. spectabile and the fact that none remained in collections, it began to be speculated that maybe D. alexandrae was a fluke, just a variation on D. spectabile. However, in the 1970s a Mrs. Andrée Miller, who had conducted many orchid expeditions to New Guinea, donated her orchids to a botanic garden in Florida, and by 1984 one of slow-growing orchid bloomed with a strange flower. Finally, this enigmatic orchid could be compared to the old drawings, and definitively identified.