Dendrobium sagin (Orchidaceae: Epidendroideae), a new species from the Bird’s Head Peninsula, West New Guinea

With about a dozen species, Dendrobium section Fugacia Smith (1905: 343) is one of the smaller but also one of the more distinctive clades within the large genus Dendrobium Swartz (1799: 82) (Schuiteman 2014). The plants have unbranched, tufted, clavate and usually distinctly angular stems of several internodes, of which only two or three of the uppermost ones carry a non-sheathing leaf. The inflorescences are subsessile and one- or few-flowered and arise singly from the swollen upper internodes. Flowers are ephemeral, generally opening early in the morning, often before sunrise, and withering in the afternoon. Unusually in Dendrobium, the lip is mobile and delicately hinged to the short column-foot, a character-state more commonly found in the sister genus Bulbophyllum Thouars (1822: t. 3). The lip is often broader than long and can be broadly obreniform in outline.