Orchid Plant

Facts about the Orchid Plant

• The “orchid boom” was, of course, significantly smaller in scale than tulip mania in Holland, but it was reflected in literature. For example, in writer Rex Stout’s classic American detective novels, Nero Wolfe, the main hero adores orchids and considers his life’s goal their cultivation. In a fit of generosity, nature created over 25,000 varieties of these beautiful flowers. And although some orchid varieties were barbarously eliminated as a result of the rapacious “orchid boom,” their number still staggers the imagination. But there are problems with orchid propagation. Despite the fact that the flowering time for certain varieties lasts 40 to 90 days, and that each flower bears up to 10,000 tiny seeds like specks of dust, only those that happen onto particular conditions have the opportunity to germinate. For example, some orchids cannot reproduce unless their seeds fall onto a particular mushroom that grows nearby on their native ground. Besides that, orchids are a long-lived plant, and for most varieties years pass from the moment they begin growing to their first flowering, and for some - decades. Now we are beginning to understand why many orchids are on the brink of extinction.
• About 250 new orchid species are dsicovered each year, while there are 25 000 described species in all.

Orchid Plant: History

“One should take pleasure in the look of the orchid just as one takes pleasure in kissing a woman or listening to poetry. Gaze upon it long and attentively. Admire the softness of its lines and the multiplicity of its patterns… Do not let a single hue in its range of colors slink away, it is a flower pool one wants to dive into and never return to the surface,” wrote the Czech floriculturalist, Jan Sampan. Perhaps no one could have said it better. This tropical plant is by right considered an aristocrat among flowers for its unearthly beauty and rapturous fragrance, and for its amazingly capricious behavior under cultivation. Just a short time ago, cultivation of this beauty in northern latitudes was very difficult. For a long while, the secret of the orchid remained unrevealed. In most cases, when plucked from its nearly inaccessible native jungle habitat of Central and South America, the plant would simply die. Greenhouses and hot, moist air offered no help. Only recently have botanists and selectionists learned to work with orchids. American floriculturalists have been particularly successful. Every year, California exports hundreds of thousands of these perfect plants.

Orchids were discovered relatively recently, in the mid-18th century, and immediately won enormous popularity. The cost of these exotic flowers in Europe was so high that entire expeditions were fitted out with the solitary goal of finding these plants. Many orchid hunters died in the jungles from the bites of poisonous snakes, diseases, and Indian arrows. It was necessary not only to find the orchids, but also to preserve and carry the bulbs or cuttings to Europe. Trans-Atlantic voyages of that time were not as safe as they are now, and many ships sank without delivering the precious cargo their crews had obtained with such great difficulty. Herbert Wells, the famous science-fiction author, wrote: “Acquiring orchids is as amusing as playing the stock market. It is a kind of speculation. Before you lies a wrinkled, brown rootlet, and nothing else. Maybe the plant is dying or has already died, or maybe it is something precious; situations like this have occurred more than once. Before the eyes of the lucky owner, gradually a species unfurls that an unusual petal tendril or a particular softness will transform into a treasure.”