Dendrobium discolor Blue Lips

The largest of the Australian Dendrobium, it has 3 varieties with 1 being extremely variable in size and color, with few to numerous, cylindrical stems that are leafy in the upper two thirds and carries distichous, ovate to elliptic, leathery, obtuse leaves that can bloom at any time of the year, with the maximum occuring in the spring on an axillary, arched, to 2′ [to 60 cm] long, densely 10 to 80, fragrant flowered raceme arising from the upper portion of an old cane as the new growth arises, which is found in Queensland Australia and New Guinea and grows warm to hot as an epiphyte, as well as a lithophyte, directly on the coast in mangroves or behind dunes, where they can have salt spray as well as on cliffs and rock faces up to an altitude of 550 meters.