Dendrobium cancroides
The crab orchid is a warm-growing epiphyte from lowland rainforest in Far North Queensland. It has flattened, leafy cane-like stems 50–80 cm long and short-lived warty reddish-brown flowers with yellow centres, borne in ones or twos from December to May. It belongs to the Grastidium group (sometimes treated as Grastidium cancroides), which grows actively all year and wants steady moisture, warmth and humidity.
Where it grows wild
It usually grows on trees in lowland rainforest, often on branches overhanging creeks and rivers. Herbarium labels record it as an epiphyte on tree trunks, on the trunk of the palm Archontophoenix tuckeri beside a creek, on a fallen trunk in riverside forest, and occasionally on granite boulders among rotting logs.
Recorded from 71 m to 500 m, median 130 m (7 records): a lowland species.
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