Dendrobium gratiosissimum - Graceful Dendrobium

Graceful Dendrobium is a medium sized orchid, growing on trees, with drooping, stout, basally narrow, nodally swollen canes that are yellow with purple stripes. The canes carry 8-12, deciduous, linear to ovate-lanceshaped, leathery leaves that are bitoothed at the tip. The plant blooms on a short, purplish inflorescence that arise from the nodes near the tip of the cane, carrying 1-3, flowers. Flowers are fragrant, spreading, papery; sepals and petals white with pale purple tips, lip with many purplish red stripes on each side, disk with a pale yellow transverse semilunar central blotch, column white, front side with purple stripes, anther cap white. Dorsal sepal is ovate-lanceshaped, 2.3-2.5 cm x 7-8 mm, 7-veined, tip pointed or slightly blunt; lateral sepals nearly round, equal in size, 7-veined, base oblique, tip pointed. Petals are obliquely ovate, 2.3-2.5 x 1.3-1.4 cm, main veins 5, secondary veins many, base contracted into a short claw, margin entire, tip blunt; lip nearly broadly obovate, about 2.3 x 2.0 cm, above densely barbellate, base wedge-shaped, margin fringed with hairs, tip rounded. Column is about 4 mm. Graceful Dendrobium is found growing on tree trunks in open forests, at altitudes of 800-1700 m, in NE India, S Yunnan, Laos, Myanmar, N Thailand, Vietnam.