Dendrobium trachythece Schltr., Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 58 (1923) 105.
Type: Schultze 301 (holo B, lost).
Rhizome very short. Stems crowded, patent-subpendulous, obconical, sparsely branching, 30-50 cm long, many-leaved. Leaf sheaths entirely covering the stem, densely granulose-verruculose. Leaves erect-patent, lanceolate-ligulate, 3-5 by 0.8-1.3 cm, apex narrowly obtuse, shortly apiculate. Inflorescences racemose, subsessile, short. Floral bracts elliptic, much shorter than the pedicel and ovary, apex acuminate. Pedicel and ovary 2.3 cm long, slender, glabrous. Flowers c. 2 cm long. Dorsal sepal elliptic, 0.8 cm long, apex obtuse. Lateral sepals strongly oblique, broadly triangular, 0.8 cm long, apex obtuse; mentum conical, 1.2 cm long, narrowly obtuse. Petals obliquely obovate-elliptic, somewhat narrowing to the base, almost as long as the sepals, apex obtuse. Lip narrowly obovate with a linear-ligulate basal part, 1.6 by 0.6 cm wide when flattened, in the basal part 0.3 cm wide, in basal half with the margins adnate to the column-foot, the apex abruptly hood-like incurved with lacerate-dentate margins, extending to the apex of the column. Column 0.3 cm long, clinandrium 3-lobulate, the lateral lobules obliquely quadrangular, denticulate, the median a little longer, subulate, incurved; column-foot narrow, 1.2 cm long.
(after Schlechter, 1923).
Colours: Not recorded.
Habitat: Epiphyte in lowland forest.
Flowering time in the wild: November.
Distribution: New Guinea (endemic).
Distribution in New Guinea: Papua New Guinea (Sepik River).
Cultivation: Epiphyte (requirements not known).