cymbidium

If you like cymbidiums — I find the blooms lost in the thicket of their upright leaves — they are happy to spend the summers outside in the shade.

Mrs. Obama likes cymbidium orchids and looser, garden-style flower arrangements, less formal than in previous administrations and sometimes more dramatic.

Not so common but larger and handsomer than the dendrobiums are the cymbidiums, of which there are sixteen different species, usually with long grassy leaves and many-flowered drooping racemes with large handsome flowers.