Crazy Orchid Times

As you travel the Hamptons you can’t help but notice and hear about the symbols of status in our society. In this day and age it’s how large your house is, how many expensive automobiles you have, the largess of your art collection or your net worth.But in the Victorian age the symbols of status in society were a bit different. It was the age of Darwin, of discovering nature and exploration. Ships plied the oceans of the entire world looking for new places, exotic civilizations and the wonders of nature. And, of course, they all had to be brought home to truly be status symbols that could be shown to society at large.

It was a high time for plant collecting, and during this age one’s status and celebrity were exemplified by your plant collection and the size of your greenhouse(s). Trees, shrubs, perennials and bulbs were being brought back to England and America from far-away places, and the more you had, and the bigger they were, the more status you had. But the one plant that seems to have conferred the most status to your plant collection and your rung on the ladder of Victorian society was your orchids. Not your diamonds, not your gold and not the number of pairs of shoes you had … but your orchids. Power, wealth and opulence seemed to hinge on this culture’s incredible obsession with orchids.

At the time, orchid collecting was so ferocious and competitive that some species were nearly wiped out. There was also intrigue and subterfuge, as explorers would return from faraway expeditions with magnificent specimens that they would then purposely lie about when it came to disclosing where they had discovered the plants. The lies were spun in order to throw off other seekers who wanted to add this or that newly discovered orchid to their collection. In some cases, the lies were so successful that a single specimen wasn’t rediscovered for decades, and the lies may have also inadvertently saved some species from extinction since other collectors were looking in all the wrong places for them.

It was a craze not unlike the tulipmania that swept Holland in the early part of the 17th century. But in England in the 19th century, the orchid craze was called orchiddelirium, and through April 17 the New York Botanical Garden is presenting its 14th annual orchid show, where you get transported back to the days of yore in a historical trip that explores not only the genus Orchidaceae but the history of the orchid’s discovery, its exploitation and, most of all, this plant’s beauty and diversity.

Did you know that one of these plants is so highly developed that its flowers exactly mimic a particular male moth? The deception is actually so perfect that the female moth of the species is so enamored by this flower that she flies to it in an attempt to mate with what she is fooled into thinking is her male counterpart. But this orchid actually gets the last laugh (or is it a sigh?), because in the act of trying to mate with the male moth impostor, she actually pollinates the orchid and provides procreation of another type.

And there is yet another orchid, the only orchid that is grown for its purely industrial potential and not its beauty, and that few of us could live without. It’s a viney plant that produces what is incorrectly referred to as a bean from which vanilla is made. Yup, that wonderful flavor that the Aztecs seem to have discovered comes from none other than the vanilla orchid, or Vanilla planifolia, which is native to our southern neighbor Mexico. And yes, as part of your trip to the Bronx and the orchid show you’ll be able to see just how vanilla grows.

As you move through the Enid Haupt Conservatory galleries you learn about the transition of orchids from growing in the wild to orchid cultivation in the greenhouse. The trend-setting Duke of Devonshire began collecting orchids in 1833 at his Chatsworth House estate. His head gardener, Joseph Paxton, revolutionized the way orchids were cultivated in England by innovating large and more effective glass houses beginning with the Great Conservatory and culminating with his masterpiece, the Crystal Palace of Prince Albert’s Great Exhibition in London in 1851. And while taking this journey through orchid-dom, you’ll see some of the most amazing and tantalizing flowers known to man.

As part of the show there is a series of vignettes that evoke the dazzling greenhouse displays that the obsessed collectors created with their prized specimens brought back by their explorers, or were they the hired hunters of the time? There were shipwrecks, animal attacks and even fatal competitions among the explorers, and some of this is depicted and documented as you stroll through the show.

But you also learn about another, more modern part of orchid collecting and study—orchid conservation and preservation, which is a dedicated goal of the NYBG, a designated Plant Rescue Center charged with nurturing and bringing back to health orchids that have been collected illegally in the wild and subsequently seized at international borders under international agreements.

In some areas the show is highly staged and borders on theatrical—and that’s fine as long as you realize that this is an artistic presentation and not how orchids might appear in the wild. But there are just as many, if not more, areas where the orchids are displayed in nearly natural settings, where you get a sense of how these magnificent plants grow in the wild. And speaking of in the wild, in their natural settings most of these orchids occur as single specimens that seem to pop up or just appear in the rain forest or jungle overstory. The vast majority don’t grow at ground level. In fact, few tropical orchids ever come into contact with terra firma, as they are epiphytic plants and not terrestrial. This is an important thing to remember if you decide to get into orchid culture or collection, because they don’t grow in soil but in a very loose and airy medium that is usually composed of barks, mosses or a combination of both. While their roots do absorb some nutrients, most of these orchids’ roots function to stabilize and anchor the plants onto tree limbs and trunks, where their pencil-thick roots twine and bind the plants to the substrate, bark and wood.

But here is where the large group of plants in the family Orchidaceae get really interesting and even more complex. Think about the 50 states and territories that make up the United States. Where do you think the largest number of indigenous orchids occur? Hawaii? Puerto Rico? Neither. Hawaii actually has only two species of indigenous orchids. The fact is that Alaska has the largest number of native orchids, followed by New York and New Jersey, but these are all terrestrial types and not the epiphytic arboreals.

The show is really quite magnificent, though I did hear some visitors say it was quite different from the shows of previous years. But this was my first and it was a treat. There are a number of events related to the orchid show and there are a number of evenings when you can visit and even have a cocktail. You can get all the information at NYBG.org—and of course, keep growing.