Bloom Event - Dendrochilum glumaceum

I did actually edit this photo to close up on the flowers a bit more, but for some reason Google Photos has lost it. I can see it on my phone. Go figure. At any rate, this little guy has put in an appearance. I have four cultivars of Dendrochilum glumaceum which differ in the bracts that surround the new growth (there's a red one, a green one, a very baggy one, and a regular form). This particular one is the green bracted form, but the flowers are, at least to my untrained eye, identical in all four forms. This particular species stays nice and small and tidy, and I believe every collection should have at least one. It's worth it just for the scent, which is sweet and spicy. This species is often referred to as the 'hay orchid' but I can't really fathom why. It will quite often produce two flushes of new growth each year, in spring and in autumn, but I have only managed to persuade it to flower in the early spring. Flower spikes emerge from the centre of the new growth while it is young, and the new leaf continues to develop while the plant blooms. I grow it warm and it does fine, but I know a lot of people grow it cool with good results as well.

Here is a gratuitous shot of the whole plant.

Over time, plants can become quite large, producing many spikes of flowers at a time. I haven't had my plants long enough to grow to specimen size yet, though.