Dendrobium nobileLindl.

Noble Dendrobium

WFO wfo-0000939982 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Dendrobium nobile, photographed by desertnaturalist
fig. a desertnaturalist, CC BY 4.0 / 2018-04-10 / obs. 97602994
Dendrobium nobile, photographed by Thibaud Aronson
fig. b Thibaud Aronson, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 172958349
Dendrobium nobile, photographed by Thibaud Aronson
fig. c Thibaud Aronson, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 172459152
Dendrobium nobile, photographed by Siddarth Machado
fig. d Siddarth Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 65716348
Dendrobium nobile, photographed by Siddarth Machado
fig. e Siddarth Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 65716355
Dendrobium nobile, photographed by Siddarth Machado
fig. f Siddarth Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 65716342
Dendrobium nobile, photographed by Diogo Luiz
fig. g Diogo Luiz, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 126729598
Dendrobium nobile, photographed by Diogo Luiz
fig. h Diogo Luiz, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 126729826

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 13 botanical countries

Regions where Dendrobium nobile is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Tibet, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam China South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanTibetAssamBangladeshEast HimalayaIndiaLaosMyanmarNepalThailandVietnam
Native distribution of Dendrobium nobile, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Laos LAO
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Tibet CHT

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 103 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -3.7 °C 7.6 °C 13.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 17.4 °C 25.6 °C 29.4 °C
Annual rainfall 1,135 mm 2,134 mm 4,498 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 41 mm 87 mm 335 mm

It is found where winters bring light frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 103 research-grade observations of Dendrobium nobile that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 21 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Callista nobilis (Lindl.) Kuntze
  • Dendrobium chlorostylum Gagnep.
  • Dendrobium coerulescens Wall. ex Lindl.
  • Dendrobium formosanum (Rchb.f.) Masam.
  • Dendrobium lindleyanum Griff.
  • Dendrobium nobile f. cooksonianum (Rchb.f.) O.Gruss & N.H.Tuan
  • Dendrobium nobile f. nobilius (Rchb.f.) M.Hiroe
  • Dendrobium nobile f. virginale (Rolfe) O.Gruss & N.H.Tuan
  • Dendrobium nobile unranked virginale Rolfe
  • Dendrobium nobile var. alboluteum Huyen & Aver.
  • Dendrobium nobile var. alboluteum Lindl.
  • Dendrobium nobile var. anomalum Lindl.
  • Dendrobium nobile var. cooksonianum Rchb.f.
  • Dendrobium nobile var. excellens Lindl.
  • Dendrobium nobile var. formosanum Rchb.f.
  • Dendrobium nobile var. luteum Lindl.
  • Dendrobium nobile var. majus Lindl.
  • Dendrobium nobile var. nobilius Rchb.f.
  • Dendrobium nobile var. nobilus Burb.
  • Dendrobium nobile var. splendidum Lindl.
  • Dendrobium wallichianum B.S.Williams

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.