Cymbidium canaliculatum


Cymbidium canaliculatum, commonly known as the channelled boat-lip orchid, tiger boat-lip orchid, native cymbidium or tiger orchid is a plant in the orchid family and is endemic to Australia. It is a clump-forming epiphyte with large, greyish green pseudobulbs, each with up to six curved, deeply channelled leaves and up to sixty fragrant, variably coloured flowers that often have spots and blotches and a white to cream-coloured labellum with red markings. This orchid usually grows in the forks or hollows of trees and is found from New South Wales to the northern parts of Western Australia.

Description

Cymbidium canaliculatum is an epiphytic, clump-forming herb with greyish green pseudobulbs long and wide. Each pseudobulb has between two and six rigid, fleshy, curved, deeply channelled leaves and wide. Between five and sixty flowers, long and wide are borne on a flowering stem long. The flowers are olive green, yellow, brown or purple often with spots, blotches or both. The sepals are long and wide and the petals are long and wide. The labellum is usually white with red or purple markings, long and wide with three lobes. The side lobes are erect and the middle lobe curves downwards with a warty or hairy upper surface and two ridges along its midline. Flowering occurs between September and October.

Taxonomy and naming

Cymbidium canaliculatum was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown who published the description in Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen. The specific epithet is derived from the Latin word canaliculus meaning "canal" or "channel".

Distribution and habitat

The channelled boat-lip orchid grows in the forks or hollows of trees in woodlands and drier forests in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, the northern parts of the Northern Territory, and from the Cape York Peninsula in Queensland south to the Hunter River in New South Wales.