Cymbidium Sw.

Herbs, epiphytic, lithophytic, or terrestrial, autotrophic or rarely mycotrophic, usually with pseudobulbs. Pseudobulbs ovoid, ellipsoid, or spindle-shaped, rarely absent or stemlike, often enclosed in leaf bases. Leaves several to many, distichous, usually lorate or linear, rarely oblanceolate to narrowly elliptic, often articulate toward base. Inflorescence arising from base of pseudobulb or rarely from axils of leaves, erect to pendulous; rachis several to many flowered, rarely reduced to a solitary flower; floral bracts persistent. Flowers large or medium-sized. Sepals and petals free, subsimilar; lip free or basally fused for 3-6 mm to base of column, usually 3-lobed; lateral lobes erect, often clasping column; mid-lobe often recurved; disk usually with 2 longitudinal lamellae extending from base of lip to base of mid-lobe; lamellae sometimes inflated toward apex or broken in middle. Column rather long, often slightly arcuate, often narrowly winged; pollinia 2 and deeply cleft, or 4 and in 2 unequal pairs, waxy, commonly attached by a very short or indistinct caudicle to a usually broad viscidium.

These orchids grow in a wide range of wet to moist or seasonally dry habitats such as rainforest, especially littoral rainforests, sheltered slopes, gullies, streambanks and other moist sites in open forest. One hardy native species even extends inland to sparse habitats in areas of low rainfall. Another native species, Cymbidium madidum, sometimes grows as a terrestrial in sandy or gravelly soils.

Stems and pseudobulbs of the three native species of Cymbidium have been used to control dysentery by First Nations peoples and early European settlers. Crushed pseudobulbs were either chewed or made into a paste. First Nations peoples ate the young leaves and pseudobulbs of C. canaliculatum and C. madidum, and they were valuable emergency food for early European settlers and explorers. Starch can also be prepared from the pseudobulbs (Lawler 1984). The mucilaginous juice obtained from the pseudobulbs of C. canaliculatum is used as a binder in bark paintings in Arnhem Land and on Groote Eylandt (Levitt 1981, Ellersdorfer et al. 2012). Grown as ornamentals with many cultivars in horticulture.

Can be grown by divisions or seedlings.