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Everything About Orchids

Feb 1, 2012; 10:27 AM ET

So, you thought you knew everything there was to know about orchids...well this week let me surprise you a bit with some little known facts about that most wonderful and exotic plant, the orchid.

1. Bazillions of orchids.

Well, maybe not that many, but there are many, many species of orchids. Various sources say, 20,000; 25,000; 30,0000; and some report that there may be 5,000 as yet undiscovered species. (How do you figure that out ... ?) Wikipedia is more "specific" citing the numbers as "between 21,950 and 26,049". Apparently there are more than 100,000 hybrids and cultivars. All seem to agree that there are 880 genera -- at least, so far.

2. More orchids than birds.

There are twice as many orchid species are there are bird species and four times the number of mammal species. So when you ask, "How should I care for my orchid?" the answer is that it depends . . .

3. The testes plant.

The name orchid is from the Greek 'orchis' or ' orkhis', meaning testicle, which is the shape of the bulb in bulbous or saprophytic orchids. The starchy bulbs of saprophytic orchids are often edible. At one time, the plants wre called "ballockwort".

4. Every colour of the rainbow and then some.

There are endless colour variations among orchids, even black. The vanda orchids are the closest thing to blue, with a tinge of lilac, although some vanda are quite blue. As a non-sequiter, orchids do not contain any woody structure

5. Two-ton orchid.

The largest orchid ever measured weighed in at over 2,000 pounds, roots, pseudo bulbs, stems, flowers and all. This was a Grammatophyllum speciosum which was shown at the Great Exhibition in London's Crystal Palace in 1851. This giant grows in Malaysia. The flowers bloom only two out of every four years, but stick around for up to four months. They are also called sugar cane orchid or the tiger orchid for their cream and maroon spotted flowers.

6. One foot, conjoined foot.

Orchids are either monopodial, meaning the stem grows from a single bud, or sympodial, meaning branching. Phalaenopsis orchids are monopodial, sending up a single bud protected by new leaves. Sympodial orchids (Cattleya would be one) grow horizontally according to the direction of their support structure. Sympodial types grow much like a vine, sending out roots from nodes or eyes along the stem, resulting in new sprouts with their own roots and leaves.

7. As boring as vanilla?

Vanilla, the most common flavour of ice cream and widely used for cakes, cookies and candies is not as boring as you may think. Indeed, vanilla is an orchid!

8. When a leaf is not a leaf.

Some species of orchids don't have leaves, which are the normal plant organ for photosynthesis. Instead, the ghost orchid uses its green roots to photosynthesize. Others, including the coral root orchid, wrap their roots around a host tree and harvest sugars with the help of mycorrhiza, a symbiotic fungus. Some leaves are used as water storage vessels.

9. To bee or not to bee.

The petals of orchid flowers are very specialized. Two of the petals, called the lip or labellum, of the bee orchid, mimic the female insect to encourage pollination.

10. A seed unlike any other.

Seeds are so small they are hardly visible, appearing dust-like to the human eye. One reason for this is that they contain no endosperm, the part of the seed that normally supplies the food during the germination stage. Instead, orchids employ mycorrhiza fungus to provide the energy the seeds need to grow on.

Dorothy Dobbie is a writer on our site and also the co-author of a great book called 10 Neat Things. She has written many articles that can be found at www.icangarden.com (orchid photos taken by Donna Dawson)

Dorothy Dobbie

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