Orchid Information - Family Orchidaceae Subfamily Epidendroideae Tribe Dendrobieae

Dendrobieae Endl., Gen. Pl. (1837) 190. Type genus: Dendrobium Sw.

Synonyms:

• Bulbophylleae Pfitzer, Entw. Nat. Anordn. Orchid. (1887) 104 (as 'Bolbophyllinae'). Type genus: Bulbophyllum Thouars
• Sunipieae Szlach., Folia Geobot. Phytotax. 26 (1991) 323. Type: Sunipia Buch.-Ham. ex Sm., syn. nov.

Epiphytes, lithophytes, or rarely terrestrials, sympodial, herbaceous. Stems cane-like, few-to many-leaved, or pseudobulbs 1-to many-leaved, heteroblastic or homoblastic. Leaves distichous, conduplicate, glabrous or rarely pubescent or papillose; leaf sheath present or not. Inflorescence basal, lateral or terminal, 1­ flowered or racemose, rarely branched. Flowers resupinate or not, minute to large, ephemeral to long-lasting; distichous, secund or helically arranged; fragrant or scent-less. Sepals entire, free or connate; mentum present or absent. Petals entire or variously divided, free. Lip free or adnate to the column foot, immobile or hinged by a ligament and mobile, entire or lobed, with or without keels and/or calli, without spur. Column usually straight, with or without lateral wings or stelidia; column foot usually well-developed, rarely reduced to almost absent; anther helmet-shaped, rarely horn­ like and elongate, with 2-loculi; pollinia usually 4, sometimes 2, usually oblong and laterally flattened, hard waxy, if 4 then cohering in 2 pairs, each pair with subequal to strongly unequal pollinia, without caudicles, rarely with a hamular stipe in some Bulbophyllum species; stigma concave, rarely with a raised lower margin; rostellum simple, usually short, but sometimes beak-like and elongate; a well-defined, detachable viscidium usually absent, when present semiliquid or rarely solid. Pedicel and ovary terete or winged. Capsule ellipsoid, oblong, obovoid to subglobose, 1-locular, sometimes winged or triangular in cross-section, without endocarpic elaters.
(after Schuiteman 2014)

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