Chapter 1 Orchids as a Hobby
Orchids are the most fascinatingly varied and beautiful of all flowers. There are now thought to be some 30,000 species, and there are many, probably thousands, still unknown. So different are they one from another that at first glance it is hard to believe they are related. Some are large and showy, others are almost microscopic; some have delicate coloring, others such bold colors and markings that one automatically compares them to tropical birds and animals; some are serenely simple in form, others are incredibly modified and complicated. It is as if nature, having invented the basic orchid theme, has, like a musician, played every conceivable variation on that theme. In fact, nature's imagination has gone far beyond the capabilities of human imagination.
Once you have grown a plant or two, you will find yourself under their spell. Call it magic, or just plain curiosity, it is legendary among orchid growers that one cannot stop with but a few. Orchids are deeply satisfying plants. Even though the eventual reward is their flowers, there is joy in watching the new growths and roots, in seeing a plant that produced only one growth last year give rise to two this year with the promise of double the number of flowers. With the exception of a few whose flowers wink open, then close in a day or two, most plants produce flowers that last for weeks or months. The familiar corsage orchid, the Cattleya, stays fresh and perfect for two to six weeks, and Phalaenopsis can last from two to five months.
Growers who embark on the orchid adventure today are fortunate. They will not experience the trials and tribulations with which orchid growing was fraught in its early years or even the problems that faced those who began fifteen to twenty years ago. Plants are readily available and relatively inexpensive, growing methods are better understood, and materials and equipment are scaled to the needs of the small grower. There are still problems, as there are with all kinds of plants, but anyone who has grown flowers for a hobby will understand that plants are not machines, and that successful growing requires care in learning their needs, judgment in handling them, and a good deal of common sense. You may have read that orchids are as easy to grow as African violets. Well, they are, but you do not grow them like African violets. Nor do you grow an African violet like a cactus. Orchids come somewhere in between.
To understand the fortunate situation in which you will find yourself, you must know a little about the phenomenal history of orchids and orchid growing. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, many expeditions were sent to explore the tropics. The newly discovered plants intrigued the horticulturists of Europe, and botanical collectors eagerly searched out new forms and kinds. Among these were a wealth of orchids. The Europeans knew their native orchids but were overwhelmed by the tremendous quantity and variety of those being sent from the tropics. A kind of horticultural and scientific madness ensued, as more and more kinds were discovered. Much money went into the expeditions, and collectors suffered physical hardship, even risking their lives, in order to gain the prized plants. Competition was keen as the searchers scoured the lowlands, the river canyons, the jungles, and the high mountain areas. The collectors were quite jealous of their finds, and often kept locations secret, even falsifying their reports to throw other collectors off the track. Thus it was that sometimes the habitat of a certain kind of orchid was lost for years until later collectors rediscovered it.
The botanists whose job it was to study and classify the orchids had a monumental task, for orchids from the western hemisphere did not fit into the known genera. Orchids are peculiar in that kinds that look very different may actually belong to the same genus, and kinds that look alike are not always closely related. Botanists today are still trying to straighten out the relationships. Also, it often happened that the same species, perhaps found in different countries by different people, or coming into the hands of different taxonomists, was given several names. Since it is a basic nomenclatural rule that the first name given should be the one to be perpetuated, taxonomists are trying to determine the chronology of names for each species. Perpetuation of the original name assures proper credit to the person who first applied it.
The people who first tried to grow these plants were faced with many difficulties. They found that they could not just put these strange plants in pots in ordinary soil. Nor could they grow them from seed in the usual manner. Their problems were multiplied by the fact that orchids came from widely different climates and temperature conditions. Some were found by waterfalls and streams, constantly bathed in spray and mists, while some came from places boldly exposed to the drying sun. Some lived at low elevations where the temperatures were hot, others near the tops of mountains where the temperatures were cool day and night. Some perched on tree branches, and some grew on the ground in meadows and glades. Considering what we now know about the plants, it is a wonder any of them survived these early attempts to cultivate them. However, those growers who were successful fell into the same error as the early collectors, and jealously guarded their secrets. The wealthy people who could afford the traditional conservatory greenhouse did not do their own growing but hired trained growers to care for their orchids. The cloak of secrecy was kept drawn about orchid growing long into the twentieth century, except that the barrier was broken now and then by an occasional amateur willing to learn by trial and error. It was so generally believed that only the initiated could grow orchids that most novices gave up after a failure or two and others were afraid to try when there seemed so little chance that they would succeed.
Commercial orchid growing expanded tremendously between 1900 and 1920, and by this time the number of patient amateurs had also increased. The demand put a great pressure on the supplies of wild plants. Unless one could obtain divisions of plants already in cultivation, the usual way to obtain more was by importation. The reason behind this was that it was so difficult to grow orchids from seed. Although a seed capsule contains close to a million seed, and although growers had learned to make hybrid crosses, attempts to germinate the seed often resulted in complete failure or in the production of but a handful of seedlings. Ruthless stripping of the native plants, especially of cattleyas, threatened their extinction in certain areas, and brought about eventual embargoes on their exportation.
A revolution in orchid growing was brought about by a discovery made by Professor Lewis Knudson of Cornell University in 1922. He was experimenting with the germination of various kinds of seed, including that of orchids. He found that orchid seed germinated readily in a glass flask containing an agar jelly to which chemical nutrients and sugar had been added. This medium is much like that on which bacterial cultures are grown. Orchid seed is tiny, as fine as dust, and contains little or no food for the developing embryo. The availability of the nutrients and sugar enabled the embryo to develop and grow. Dr. Knudson's discovery meant that instead of fifteen or twenty seedlings, thousands could be grown from one capsule. It opened up a whole new world of possibilities to orchid lovers.
Out of pure exuberance, growers excitedly crossed any orchid with any other orchid to see what beautiful or bizarre results might be obtained. Growers sold millions of seedlings on the naive assumption that any cross would embody the best qualities of its parents. Then the truth began to emerge -- that not all crosses were good, that often all of the seedlings, or a large portion of them, were actually inferior. Occasionally good things would emerge from some crosses, and many of these older hybrids proved invaluable as the basis for further hybridization. Although much time and effort was spent in raising plants that eventually had to be discarded, both by the growers and by the amateurs who bought them, much was learned.
Thoughtful growers began to slow down and study the problems more cautiously. They learned, for instance, that one fine flower when crossed with another equally fine might give good offspring, but that when crossed with a different flower might not. Some flowers seemed to have the ability to transmit their best qualities, while others did not. Perhaps most valuable of the information gained during the explosive years was that not only could related species be crossed quite freely, but even related genera. Hybridizers are still exploring the thrilling possibilities thus offered. We can't say that orchid breeding is fully worked out even now, but the chance of obtaining good plants from seedlings is far better now than it used to be. Now, in exploring the possibilities of new hybrids, growers make the untried crosses in full knowledge that they must wait for the results before judging their worth. And buyers who purchase these seedlings also know that they must wait to see what happens.
Hybrids do not always come true from seed. A plant can be divided, but the number of divisions increases only slowly. The rather recently developed methods of tissue culture allow great numbers of new plantlets to be obtained from one original plant. The term micropropagation has been invented to cover such methods. Single cells or groups of cells are obtained from undifferentiated tissue at stem tips, called meristematic tissue, and cultured to give rise to many tiny plantlets. Leaf tissue can also now be propagated using special techniques.
It once was possible for amateurs to go orchid hunting, and it was a joy to bring home collected plants. The endangered species convention now prohibits orchid collecting except for scientific purposes, and then only with permits from the government of the host country. The tropical forests are being destroyed at such an alarming rate that it would seem now sensible to allow orchids in threatened areas to be brought out to safety. However, nothing is simple when conflicting interests are involved -- in this case those of the orchid lovers and conservationists on the one hand and the developers and exploiters on the other. Creation of national parks and preserves is being encouraged to save areas of forests and other types of native vegetation for the plants and the animals that inhabit them. It is still possible to import plants from licensed dealers, especially nurserygrown plants.
And what are these orchids that have provoked such love and excitement for generations? They are the most highly specialized plants in their line of evolution, topping the lilies and irises. They grow wild all over the world, except in regions of perpetual snow and in parched deserts. You probably know Calypso and the moccasin flowers, most showy of our native North American orchids. However, the tropics offer species in the greatest profusion, and it is the tropical orchids sought for greenhouse collections that are the progenitors of our present hybrids.
Among the kinds most frequently seen and widely grown for corsages are Cattleya, whose showy flowers with their spectacular lips come in white and shades of lavender, pink, rose, yellow, bronze, and green; Cymbidium, of more modest style, but with a wide range of colors; Phalaenopsis, whose round white or pink flowers are serenely beautiful, and which now come in shades of yellow and green as well, often barred and speckled; and Paphiopedilum, the waxy Asian ladyslipper, which can be delicately beautiful or boldly reptilian. Others, to mention but a few that are also the delight of growers, are Dendrobium, Epidendrum, Oncidium, Odontoglossum, and Vanda, all of which give sprays of charming, brightly colored flowers in varied designs and sizes.
Most orchids live in the tropics, and in the greatest numbers inhabit the cloud forests, at elevations between 3,000 and 9,000 feet. Orchids are found above and below this belt, but they become fewer in number and variety as the mountain tops or sea level are approached. In these jungles, vegetation is dense and competition for light is almost vicious. Plants grow so thickly that the jungles are really forests upon forests. Giant ferns and other vegetation completely covers the ground. Plants that need more light than they can get on the ground contrive in some manner to reach up above the undergrowth. Vines grow up the tree trunks and form a tangled network among the branches. Some trees whose seedlings would die on the ground send their seed to germinate on branches of other trees; when the seedling develops it sends roots down into the ground and eventually smothers the tree that gave it support. Light- and air-loving orchids would have been pushed out of existence long ago if they had not evolved some way to live above the stifling mass of undergrowth.
The whole top of a forest is an aerial garden. Orchids and some other plants have learned to cling to the trees. Sometimes the burden of plants grows so heavy that a thick branch may break under its weight. Plants that live on other plants are called "epiphytes," "epi" meaning above or on, and "phyte" meaning plant. The epiphytes obtain no nourishment from the plants on which they grow -- they are not parasites. They merely grow where they can find a foothold and a collection of humus material, dead leaves and bugs. Epiphytic orchids may also be found growing on thatched roofs (often placed there by the natives), stone walls, fallen logs, or rocky cliffs.
The epiphytes have cleverly adapted their structure to their needs as air dwellers. Since they are cut off from a continuous supply of water, they must depend on catching rain and dew, and for this purpose their roots have a spongy coating that soaks up water. To withstand the period betweenrains, their stems and leaves are thickened, like the stem of a cactus, for the storage of water. When such a plant is grown in a flowerpot, the potting medium must be extremely porous to allow the roots plenty of air.
Many kinds of orchids may live on the same tree. Those that can resist drying most efficiently and which also require a lot of light live in the tops of the trees and on exposed branches. Those that cannot resist drying quite so well, or which do better when shaded somewhat more, may live lower down on the tree, and some miniature orchids often find protection among the roots and stems of a larger plant.
In addition to epiphytic orchids, there are other kinds that live on the ground and are not equipped to resist drying. They are found in more open forests, in meadows, or along the banks of streams where the break in vegetation allows light to reach them. These are called terrestrials. The ground in which they grow is always fluffy with humus, such as rotting wood or thick layers of dead leaves, so that even these, when grown in pots, must have an open, well-drained compost.
Most amateurs start a collection with a few cattleya plants, and add other kinds as they go along. Each kind has it own blooming season, so that even with a small collection it is possible to have a spread of flowers throughout the year. We always suggest beginning with mature plants, either species or hybrids. In the first place it is hard to wait years for flowers, so we think it is fun to get something that will bloom soon. Also, the mature plants are better able to withstand changed conditions and are more likely to survive what mistakes you may make in learning to care for them. In growing a mature plant, you learn to know its habits, how it makes its growths and roots, how the flowers develop, etc. After you have served an apprenticeship in this way, you are ready to try some seedlings, perhaps a few very young ones, just out of the flask, or some two- or three-year-olds.
Tiny seedlings just out of the flask are delicate, and even though they are about a year old, they are so small that they are put twenty-five to thirty in a community pot or small flat. Their growth for the next year is slow, and some do not survive. They need to be shaded carefully and kept quite damp. During their third and fourth years they are moved from small single pots to increasingly larger ones, and become robust and more demanding of light.
Seedlings are priced according to their size: Very young plants in flasks or community pots cost less than those in two- or three-inch pots, and these in turn are less expensive than ready-to-bloom ones. Plants in any one cross are not all of equal quality. The chance of obtaining choice ones is increased by buying several in the same cross. You can have a nice variety by acquiring seedlings from several different crosses for only a small outlay.
The suspense of waiting for a new hybrid, or any plant new to your collection, to bloom is beyond description. Day by day you watch the buds grow larger, until one day you see that the tip of the bud is opening. Within a few hours the sepals and petals swing out and the lips starts to unfurl. You can almost see the flower parts move. It takes about twenty-four hours for the flower to open, but it is somewhat limp during this stage, and the colors are pale. As another twenty-four to forty-eight hours pass, the color intensifies, the flower becomes firm, its parts stretch open to their fullest, and finally its peak of perfection is reached. Here is one of nature's most artful creations, and it is yours to enjoy for days or weeks, and will repeat itself for years to come.
Copyright © 1990 by Prentice Hall Press