Phalaenopsis Blume

Carl Ludwig Blume

Charles Ludwig de Blume or Karl Ludwig von Blume was a German-Dutch botanist.He was born at Braunschweig in Germany, but studied at Leiden University and spent his professional life working in the Dutch East Indies and in the Netherlands, where he was Director of the Rijksherbarium at Leiden...

 (1825), abbreviated Phal in the horticultural trade, is an orchid

Orchidaceae

The Orchidaceae, commonly referred to as the orchid family, is a morphologically diverse and widespread family of monocots in the order Asparagales. Along with the Asteraceae, it is one of the two largest families of flowering plants, with between 21,950 and 26,049 currently accepted species,...

 genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of approximately 60 species. Phalaenopsis is one of the most popular orchids in the trade, through the development of many artificial hybrids.
The generic name means "Phalaen[a]-like" and is probably a reference to the genus Phalaena, the name given by Carolus Linnaeus

Carolus Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus , also known after his ennoblement as , was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who laid the foundations for the modern scheme of binomial nomenclature. He is known as the father of modern taxonomy, and is also considered one of the fathers of modern ecology...

 to a group of large moths; the flowers of some species supposedly resemble moth

Moth

A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...

s in flight.