Welcome to  the second issue of the Orchid Ezine.  From your e-mailed comments I think you have enjoyed it so far.  Please keep your comments coming, good or bad.  Let me know what you think of it and what you would like to see in future issues.  Once again, if any of you have any tips or articles you would like to share, please send them to me and I will get them incorporated in future issues.    The forth

an article from Down Under.  Peter Spencer has shared his thoughts on the benefits of using Epsom salts on your orchids.  Well enough of my babbling, get on with reading the rest of the Ezine.
Happy Growing,
Fred Williams

coming issues will be longer then the first two issues as we will start the first in a series of articles about different species within a genus.  The first genus we will take a look at is Dendrobiums.  Not only will we discuss the history, origins, and cultivation, but we will also include photographs of the plants and flowers.  I hope you will enjoy this series as much as I have preparing for it.  This month we have

Dendrobiums

The genus dendrobium was named in 1799 by Olof Swartz.  Current taxonomists estimate that there is anywhere from 800 to 1,100 species.  Being one of the largest orchid genus they occur as far north as Korean and Japan, throughout China, west to India and Sri Lanka, down through Peninsular Malaysia, Indonesia, Borneo, the Philippines, New Guinea (which had the most species of any country) to Australia and as far east as Tahiti in the Pacific

Ocean (Cootes 65).
  There is such variety within the genus.  You have small little flowers that you have to look twice to make sure you see them (anceps) to flowers up to 4 inches across (sanderae). Most if not all of them grow as epiphytes.  Some of them only have a few flowers (adae) up to several hundred flowers (anosmum). 
  Most of the commonly grown dendrobiums can be grown in baskets or mounted on slabs of cork

or tree fern.  Over the next several issues of the e-Zine, we will break down the genus into the different groups (geographically) and give culture in general and specific to species that we will cover. 
  This is a fascinating and rewarding genus to grow and as we will discover over the next several issues, we should make room in our collections for them.  We will start with dendrobiums native to the Philippines.

Inside this issue: