Dendrobium victoria-regina
Dendrobium victoria-regina is a cool growing epiphyte, native to the Philippines where it grows on moss covered trees in consistent moisture all year round and good air movement. It is a free flowering species, but the peak of its flowering seems to be in June when it produces the first flush. The flowers are held normally in clusters of 3-4 but we have known our plants to produce up to 7 on its very short spikes. The flowers of this species are famous for being blue but the quality of the blue does vary. Our stock plants grow in the side of a moss covered baskets where they are kept wet all year and hang in our cloud forest greenhouse (min 12C).
We have two specimen plants and they have one rosettes at Gardeners World Live for Best Trade Dendrobium and Second Trade Dendrobium.
One plant is very vigorous and floriferous with smaller pale flowers (Photo 1 and 3) while the other is slower growing with larger, darker blue flowers (photo 2). We have seedlings of the cross between the two clones back in the nursery and we will be offering these from next spring.