For
many, many years’ orchids have captivated and
fascinated people. They became a symbol of romance,
adventure and wealth. “Plant hunters” were
employed by the rich and famous to travel into the
dark, dangerous jungles to collect these plants, and
to try and discover that extra special species.
Thousands
of plants were ripped from their habitat to feed the
‘hunger’ of greenhouse owners and
collectors of these exotic and much sought after
flowers. Often, when the collectors found a
particular species, they would remove as many plants
as they could carry and ship back to Europe, then
destroy what plants were left in order to prevent
others collecting them, this way they ensured that
their plants were unique and fetched higher prices.
Along
with the plants, returned stories of death and
disease, many an orchid collector lost his life in
the jungle collecting plants. While tales of life
threatening diseases such as malaria etc. and
murderous (?) natives were undoubtedly true, many
stories which returned with the plants were
exaggerated, and ultimately resulted in the demise of
the plants as growers tried to mimic their natural
environment in their greenhouses. Unfortunately, to
ensure that they justified the high prices that they
commanded, stories of how the plants had to be
collected in the fierce heat of hot, steamy jungles
encouraged the Victorian growers to build stove
houses.
These
stove houses were large conservatories or glasshouses
which quite literally had a wood burning or
coal-fired stove situated in the centre of the
building. The stove was stoked and kept burning to
encourage extremely high temperatures, far in excess
of the actual temperatures of the jungles. After
flowering, if they lived that long, the plants would
gradually die because of the excessive heat that they
were subjected to, and rarely would a plant survive
for a few years. This, however, was of little
consequence, because all that had to be done was send
a message to the collectors to find some more.
Fortunately,
there were some growers whose main concern became
finding a means to keep what plants they had alive.
Soon they became ware of what the plants real
requirements were, and orchids began to survive
longer and then breeding began to take place. In the
early days, the requirements for seed germination was
little understood, and out of, perhaps, 500,000 seeds
from one orchid seed capsule, only a couple of seeds
would germinate, and often none. Usually it would be
more economical to have your collectors find more
plants. The first orchid hybrids, because of the
difficulty with seed germination, would command high
prices, perhaps prices of hundreds of pounds. With
lots of care and better understanding of their needs,
the serious breeders began to realise that something
was missing from the seeds requirements. It was a
symbiotic fungus which in nature invaded the seed and
in return for ‘housing’, it broke down the
seeds food requirement as the seed, being as fine as
dust, had no food-storing mechanism as other types of
plant seed has.
Even
with this understanding, seed germination was still
erratic and often non-existing. Various methods being
employed, such as sowing seed on the surface of the
potting medium of a parent plant in the hope of the
seed being invaded by fungus from that plant.
As
time went on, methods of sowing seed in laboratories
on agar under sterile conditions were refined, and
seed germination, along with hybridisation became the
norm. Nowadays, orchids are only collected from the
wild when new species are discovered, or for
conservation needs. Plants are now readily available
from cultivated seeds.
Far
from the excessively hot conditions of yesteryear, it
is now understood that orchids don’t need
extremely hot conditions, in fact, in order to
survive they need to be grown in much cooler
conditions than once believed. Basically they are
kept in three temperature zones known as cool house,
intermediate house and warm house. Respectively,
minimum winter night temperatures are, 50f. (10c.),
55f. (12c.) and 60f. (15c.). there is of course more
of a variation in temperatures, but these are the
basic three, with some requiring higher minimums and
others requiring lower. Along with these
temperatures, orchids require high humidity, with in
some instances; the air needs to be near saturation
point. Also a steady flow of air movement is a
requirement, and genera such as the Odontoglossums
need such high air movement that the leaves can be
seen to be moving.
No
longer are orchids difficult to grow, nor are they so
difficult to find and expensive. With thousands of
species and many thousands of hybrids, there is a
plant to suit everyone’s pocket, experience and
conditions.
