Dendrochilum Doesn't Exist

[Fairorchids]

For the taxonomists & Kew, there is only current 'truth'. Whether that means renaming a species for the fourth or fifth time doesn't matter.

In other plant families, this generally does not matter, since there is very limited intergeneric breeding, so most hybrids involve only a small number of very closely related species. For example, most Clivia hybrids are still pure Clivia miniata (though with different color forms).

In orchids any changes have much greater impact, since we are dealing with 250,000+ hybrids, many of which are intergeneric. Much as I love the lack of genetic barriers on hybridizing in most of the orchid family, it comes back to bite us each time the taxonomists make a change.

There is no solution to this, other than continuously consulting the various databases available to us.