Cymbidium hookerianum is a species of medium to large size orchid, which prefers cold weather.

[1] Cymbidium hookerianum was described by Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach and published in The Gardeners' Chronicle & Agricultural Gazette in 1866.

[2] Cymbidium: The name derives from the Greek word kumbos, which means "hole, cavity".

According to other scholars it derives from the Greek kimbe, which means boat, for the shape of the ship that the lip assumes.

The species name hookerianum was chosen in honor of botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker, "an excellent name too, given with the writer's best wishes as a gratulation for the first new year's day of his Kew directorship, to Dr.