Cymbidium canaliculatum R.Br.

Horticultural & Botanical History

Curtis’s Botanical Magazine figures the variety marginatum, with purple-maroon flowers with a green edge to sepals and petals.  In the accompanying article Joseph Hooker compared the bracts of specimens supplied by John Bidwill from Wide Bay and other Kew herbarium specimens.  ‘A native of Cape York, in North Eastern tropical Australia, where it was collected by Robert Brown in the beginning of the century, and again by Mr. John Veitch, F.L.S., who sent it to England during his collecting voyage to Australia and the Western Pacific, which resulted in the making known of so many interesting plants and beautiful horticultural novelties.  Mr. Veitch’s specimen appears to differ a little from the description of Brown’s plant in the more obtuse perianth leaves, and in the lip being 3-lobed at the middle rather than the apex.  After carefully comparing the flower, however, with excellent specimens of those of C. canaliculatum, sent by Dr. Mueller from Arnheim’s Land, by Oldfield from Hunter’s River, New South Wales, and from subtropical Australia, collected by Bidwill, I find it impossible to establish any satisfactory character whereby to distinguish them.  A more obvious point of difference is the much larger bracts of the Arnheim’s and Hunter’s River plants; but these are as small in Bidwill’s specimen as in Mr. Veitch’s.  This plant would thus seem to be variable, and to have a very wide range in distribution, from the temperate climate of Hunter’s River, in lat. 330 S., to the torrid and arid shores of Arnheim’s Land, in 13 degrees N., and Cooper’s Creek in Central Australia, in which latter localities Mueller states that it is the only known orchid.  The specimen here figured flowered in Messrs. Veitch’s nursery in April, 1870.  [BM t.5851/1870].  It is probable that William Macarthur’s plants, from Wide Bay and almost certainly obtained from Bidwill, were identical to those described by Hooker.  Bidwill’s failure to identify Macarthur’s plants as C. canaliculatum could be due to the differences pointed out by Hooker.

‘This pretty species [Dendrobium canaliculatum R.Br.] is much better known under the name D. Tattonianum.  It is found in Queensland, but has not yet, so far as I am aware, been procured from New South Wales.  It is rather variable in colour, and flowers in November.  It is the species referred to by Mr. Carron as having attracted his attention and admiration when the ill fated expedition under Kennedy was entangled in the swamps and backwaters of Rockingham Bay, and as such may well be associated with the memories of a thorough botanist and of an intrepid explorer.  Though rather frequently to be found in collections in England it is not readily grown here in Sydney, even in the hot-house, and soon languishes in wither green-house or bush-house.  [Fitzgerald/c.1879].

History at Camden Park

Listed in the 1850 and 1857 catalogues [O.12/1850].  Almost certainly obtained from John Bidwill from Wide Bay.  It is figured by Fitzgerald ‘from a plant kindly given to me by Sir William Macarthur’ and is one of the few illustrations of a plant grown by him at Camden Park, drawn from life during his lifetime.  

Notes