AboutOrchids

Illinois College biologists are bringing some rare orchids home to Hawaii. Like I blogged last May, this Platanthera species, also known as the Fringed Orchid, is one of the few true island natives, and it’s endangered. Habitat destruction, invasive plants and animals, and theft from the wild have severely reduced the wild population. In 1992, Hurricane Iniki almost wiped out all the Fringed Orchids on Kauai. Only one remains there, with a few dozen more on Maui and Molokai. Illinois College and the National Tropical Botanical Garden have been collaborating to grow them and return them to the wild. This weekend, they’ll plant about 90 seedlings from an Illinois lab back in their native Hawaiian habitats. While celebrating this success, Chipper Wichman, director of Kauai’s National Tropical Botanical Garden, added that “This does not ensure the survival of this species. What this does is it gives us a huge step forward.”

This lengthy list illustrates the global popularity of orchids. Shows span the world, especially as the northern half of the planet eagerly awaits spring. Major orchid shows are happening in San Francisco, Santa Barbara, San Diego, London, and Taiwan.

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San Francisco hosts the largest orchid show in North America this week. The 59th Annual Pacific Orchid Expo starts with a Gala Benefit Preview on Thursday, March 3. The show is open to the public Friday, March 4 – Sunday, March 6. Tickets are available online. With 150,000 orchids under one roof, you’re guaranteed to have a jaw-dropping good time. Dave and I will be there with our cameras.

A tropical escape is closer than expected for New Yorkers. “The Orchid Show: On Broadway” promises to dazzle at the New York Botanical Garden. The exhibit runs from March 5 – April 25. Tony award-winning set designers showcase over 5000 orchids and the Great White Way. The exhibit also provides activities for kids.

From March 5 – 13, the City of Brotherly Love hosts the 2011 Philadelphia International Flower Show, the world’s largest indoor flower show. This year’s theme is “Springtime in Paris,” and includes plenty of orchids. Tickets are available online.

In addition to these and other long-running exhibits, Cleveland Botanical Garden offers “Orchid Mania – Purple Reign” from February 26 – March 27. It’s an orchid tribute to the most royal of colors. Along with beautiful blooms and wonderful scents, the exhibit includes a photography contest.

Vallarta Botanical Gardens has orchids, chocolate, and vanilla to enjoy, but it also has a painful side. Pointy cactus spines and sharp yucca leaves abound. Bougainvillea flowers crown vines with large, nasty thorns. No matter how beautiful, they can puncture and pierce. The gardens are perfectly safe, as long as you stay on paths and pay attention. However, with my camera distracting me, I usually manage to stumble into something prickly.

Of course, these desert growers are just defending themselves in the hot, arid climate. Thorny plants may not have the opulence of orchids, but their barbed exteriors can’t hide their beauty. They endure the Mexican heat that slows me down, even with a water bottle by my side. Yet, that doesn’t matter much when the saw-edged leaves of a Blue Agave scratch my arm. At least the cut provides a medicinal excuse to drink the agave’s tequila.

Many of these are great choices for gardeners in desert and semidesert areas who don’t mind pointed plants. If it’s tough for you to provide high humidity for orchids, plant succulents and cactus instead. For example, try growing this tree with prickly bark, which looks like an invention of the Spanish Inquisition. Floss Silk Trees are native to South America, and related to Africa’s fascinating Baobab trees. I’ll stick with orchids, thank you, and save on the bandages.

During our recent visit to Vallarta Botanical Gardens, Dave and I took lots of Epidendrum photos. Mexico has many native varieties. It was easy to see that they’re tough plants like my own, and reliable bloomers. Some of the most colorful ones were growing in full tropical sun.

The Epidendrum species known as the Greenfly Orchid is less colorful, but no less fascinating. It’s native to eastern Mexico and the southeastern USA, where it grows in a wide range from Louisiana to North Carolina and south to Florida. This species can tolerate light freezes. Its masses of small, greenish-yellow flowers have a sweet scent. Botanists changed its name several years ago from Epidendrum conopseum to Epidendrum magnoliae, but the nickname Greenfly Orchid remains the same.

Without a name tag, I’m not sure what this next species is. It may be Epidendrum atroscriptum, which is native to southern Mexico. But it also looks like Epidendrum paniculatum. Fortunately, the Mexican Hermit Hummingbird in the final photo didn’t care about long Latin names. Paused on a branch at Vallarta Botanical Gardens, it appeared to share our appreciation of these beautiful blooms.

Australian scientists recently celebrated the successful cultivation of the bizarre Eastern Underground Orchid. Now, they’re learning about plant genetics from its close cousin, the Western Underground Orchid. This weird plant is also a Rhizanthella species, and lives below ground, except when its flowers peek through the soil. Without green leaves for photosynthesis, it survives by feeding off a fungus. It has fewer chloroplast genes than any other plant. The shrunken genetic code will help scientists better understand chloroplasts, and how plants lose genes that they no longer need. Those are big contributions to science from such a strange, small orchid.

If valentine romance is turning into worry over your new orchid, take heart. With a few care basics, orchids are as easy as common houseplants. Check out these tips, and then you can turn your thoughts back to your valentine.

• All orchids need high humidity. Dry air can lead to wilting flowers, drying leaves, and pests.
• You’ll eventually have to remove ribbons, wrapping paper, or decorative containers if they block the holes in the bottom of the flower pot. Orchids need good air flow and water drainage around their roots. They’ll quickly rot if left sitting in water.
• It will help to identify your orchid so you can learn specific light, temperature, and water needs. You don’t need to figure out its exact name, only the family of orchids where it belongs.
• Phals, or Moth Orchids, are the most common varieties sold. If the shape of your flowers look like the first photo below, then that’s probably what you have. Other common varieties include Cattleyas and Oncidiums.
• If you can’t identify your orchid, use these basic care tips.
• Established orchid growers should continue to maintain winter dormancy, keep up humidity, and watch for pests. When new roots or leaves start to appear, check to see if it’s time to repot.

Chocolate is a Valentine’s Day requirement for chocoholics like me, and is made from the seeds of a small tropical tree. It’s not an orchid, but it is a fascinating plant that’s long been cultivated in Central and South America. My favorite food comes from cocoa pods, the fruit of Theobroma cacao, also known as the Cocoa Tree. Beans from the pods are dried, cleaned, roasted, and pressed to remove their bitterness, and turned into edible cocoa. Then, they’re just a recipe away from being a delicious confection.

Chocolate’s cultivation and history share close ties with that famous orchid vanilla. By the time Montezuma greeted Hernan Cortes with a vanilla-flavored chocolate drink in 1519, the peoples of Central and South America had been cultivating both crops for several millennia. Ancient Mayans and Aztecs drank chocolate mixed with chiles, cinnamon, honey, peanuts, or vanilla. They also used cocoa beans as currency. The conquistadors brought chocolate to Europe, where the fruit became the treat of royalty, always flavored with vanilla extract. It wasn’t until the court of famous sweet-tooth Queen Elizabeth I that English confectioners tried vanilla with different sweets.

Fresh cocoa beans are very bitter, but have a sweet, pulpy coating that tastes just like chocolate (just don’t bite down!) Nowadays, farmers grow the crop throughout the tropics. West Africa and Southeast Asia supply most of the world’s cocoa beans. Vanilla remains a common flavoring in chocolate. Consider it a bonus that when you eat chocolate, you may be tasting a drop of orchid, too. Now bring on that Chocolate Valentine!

Kew Gardens is hosting a Tropical Extravaganza, billed as “London’s most colourful festival.” From February 5 – March 6, Kew showcases a rainforest display with tropical plants, including thousands of orchids, in the Princess of Wales Conservatory.

With the planet’s largest plant collection, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew has long been the center of the botanical world. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, and deserves a visit at any opportunity. The Tropical Extravaganza festival provides a welcome escape from winter, and presents brilliant colors and intoxicating floral perfumes. If you can’t make it to London, you can still enjoy some of Kew’s floral beauty online.

Want to buy your valentine an orchid? Try vanilla! Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting you buy a vanilla plant. As you can see from the healthy specimens at Vallarta Botanical Gardens, these heavy vines are best left to climb up tropical trees or hang in greenhouses.

However, it is easy to buy a gift made with vanilla. As the world’s most delicious orchid, vanilla finds its way into many valentine’s essentials. Cakes, candies, cookies, perfumes, and scented lotions often contain it. Thousands of years ago, the native peoples of Mexico first used it as a flavoring for cooking, especially with chocolate. They created the process to dry and cure the seedpods, and bring out the vanilla beans’ distinct flavor.

Vanilla planifolia is the most common source for the natural flavoring. Shown in the next photo, it has the long, skinny seedpods familiar to cooks. Vanilla pompona is a less common source, native to Central America from Mexico to Panama. Its seedpods in the last 2 photos look like small bananas. Even if you don’t consider yourself much of a cook, it’s easy to use the beans to make vanilla sugar, vanilla brown sugar syrup, or your own vanilla vodka.

Vanilla’s tastiness and versatility keep it in the top ranks of valentine gifts. Of course, regular-size orchids with flowers also make excellent presents. Start by checking out these buying tips to find the right Phal, Paph, or Cattleya. You can always have vanilla with your valentine dessert.