Dendrobium carronii
Pink tea tree orchid
Family Orchidaceae
About
The pink tea tree orchid is a small epiphyte of Cape York Peninsula and southern New Guinea. Squat pseudobulbs carry a few channelled leaves and sprays of star-shaped pink flowers with brown and purple markings.
Field notes
Morphology
Cone- to onion-shaped pseudobulbs 3–5 cm long each bear two to four fleshy, channelled, green to purplish leaves 7–12 cm long. A flowering stem 8–20 cm long holds two to twelve pink flowers about 2–2.5 cm across, marked dark brown and purple, with twisted petal tips and a yellow three-lobed lip.
Distribution & habitat
From Bamaga at the tip of Cape York Peninsula to the McIlwraith Range in Queensland, and the southern coast of New Guinea, usually in stunted open forest near areas flooded in the wet season.
Ecology
Often grows on Melaleuca viridiflora trees.
History & etymology
Described in 1982 by Bill Lavarack and Phillip Cribb in Austrobaileya. Named after William Carron, botanist on Edmund Kennedy's ill-fated 1848 expedition.
Conservation
Listed as vulnerable in Australia under the EPBC Act 1999, mainly threatened by illegal collecting. IUCN status Near Threatened.
Habitat
- Altitude
- Not recorded
- Altitude class
- —
- Native to
- Australia, Papua New Guinea
- IUCN status
- Near threatened
Cultivation
- Difficulty
- Not recorded
Text adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Crossed D. carronii with another species?Register the cross. If it's not documented yet you'll be the first contributor; if someone already registered it, you'll be taken there to add your photo.