" There is a problem with the name Aerides. According to the suffix -es it
belongs to what is called the third declination of nouns in Latin. And
ther are (as far as I know) no rules that say which words are male and
wich are female. You would have to look them up in a dictionary (or as an
ancient Roman, you would have known it by intuition?). And here is the
problem: The ancient Romans didn't know the Aerides. So in classical Latin
dictionaries you won't find the gender of this genus. If male it would be
odoratum, if female it would be odorata.

I have taken a look at what the RHS does and they spell odoratum. Jays
orchid species encyclopedia on the other hand says odorata (and has
odoratum as synonym)

So ?????
Aerides is Greek
Odoratum isLatin
It is a no-no for linguists to mix two languages
but Taxonomists can't be experts in everything.
Yet it causes difficulties.
That is why someone opted for the neuter: odoratum.
Ed Cormier