!Grammatophyllum speciosum Blume 1825
Inflorescence and PlantPhoto by Jay Pfahl, Plant grown By Seacloud Orchids
Mature PlantPhotos by Peter Maxwell
TO EARLY 
and 
Common Name The Showy Flowered Grammatophyllum
Flower Size 5 to 8" [12.5 to 20 cm] LAO MYA THA VIE 42 BOR JAW MLY MOL PHI SUL SUM 43 BIS NWG SOL
A large epiphyte and occasional lithophyte occuring in lowland forests near streams and rivers at elevations up to 1200 meters in Myanamar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Borneo, Java, Moluccas, the Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatra, Bismark Islands, Papua and New Guinea and the Solomon Islands and is recorded to be the heaviest orchid in the world and is capable of becoming huge in cultivation. They have erect to spreading, very long, cylindric, yellowish with age, many ridged and noded pseudobulbs enveloped completely by leafless and leaf-bearing sheaths and carrying thin textured, distichous, linear or ovate, obtuse or acute, decurved in apical half leaves that are articulated to the basal leaf sheaths and blooms in the fall and early winter as well as in the summer and have a 4 to 10 foot [120 to 300 cm] long, basal, erect to arching, racemose, many flowered inflorescence that carry 30 to 50 sometimes fragrant, waxy, successively opening, long-lasting flowers with the lowest flowers being imperfect and distant. This species has erect,spreading or drooping psuedobulbs that can be up to 3 meters long and leaves that go well up the stem giving them more of a palm tree look. Can be slow to bloom, plants need to be large and have a lot of backbulbs and even still the orchid can be sporadic, at best, to bloom
Synonyms Grammatophyllum cominsii Rolfe 1891; Grammatophyllum fastuosum Lindl. & Paxton 1851; Grammatophyllum giganteum Blume ex Rchb. f. 1877; Grammatophyllum macranthum Rchb. f. 1862; Grammatophyllum pantherinum Rchb.f 1878; Grammatophyllum papuanum J.J. Sm. 1911; Grammatophyllum sanderianum hort. 1893; Grammatophyllum wallisii Rchb. f. 1877; Pattonia macrantha Wight 1852
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ; Orchids of Burma Grant 1895/1995; Die Orchideen Von Java J.J.Sm. 1905; Orchidiana Philipiniana Vol 1 Valmayor 1984; Orchidiana Philipiniana Vol 1 Valmayor 1984 as G wallisii; Orchidaceae of German New Guinea Schlechter 1985 as Grammatophyllum papuanum; Orchids of Java Comber 1990; A Checklist of the Orchids of Borneo Wood & Cribb 1994;Orchids of Sumatra Comber 2001; Flora Malesiana Orchids of the Philippines Vol I Agoo, Shuiteman and de Vogel 2003;
