Past Newsletters

Vol 4 No 8

Mokara Wai Liang

Your colorful selection this month arrives from the far reaches of Singapore. The enchanting Mokara Orchid is a trigeneric hybrid between the Ascocentrum, Vanda, and Arachnis Orchids. Created in Singapore in 1969, Mokara is now as popular as its parents. The first Mokara hybrid was called Mokara Wai Liang, named after C.Y. Mok of Singapore. This hearty hybrid has a unique flower shape and the potential to last up to two weeks with proper care.

Captivating orchids have long been ambassadors of Singapore. These charismatic, elegant flowers produce blooms that never cease to amaze. Orchids have become such a large part of the Singapore culture that you can see them all over - public buildings, homes, and even on people, since vibrant orchid leis are often presented as a welcoming token. In fact, many unique orchids are named after state visitors, dignitaries and 'super stars' from all over the world. Who knows, one day we may be sending you a bouquet of Arnold Schwarzenegger Orchids?

If you are a big fan of orchids, we recommend that you take your next vacation in Singapore. In Singapore, the orchid hybridizing program started as early as 1928! To get your orchid fix, begin by visiting the Singapore Botanic Garden which is home to their National Orchid Garden. There, you can see 7 ½ acres of carefully landscaped slopes covered with about 60,000 orchid plants, including over 400 species and more than 2,000 hybrids!

100,000 Distinct Species

We can trace orchids back to the Early Greeks who regarded these delicately constructed blossoms as an icon representing both beauty and love, but scientists think they were here ahead of the dinosaurs. Before man started to hybridize orchids, over 25,000 species had been identified worldwide. If you include all the new hybrids, there are nearly 100,000 varieties of orchids.

Orchids tend to be thought of as fragile and very similar, but no plant family is more diverse. Actually, the orchid family is the largest plant family we know about, and they can be grown in almost all possible environments! They grow wild on every continent except Antarctica. No surprise there - does anything grow there besides algae?

This family is amazingly diverse, from the tiny Mystacidium caffrum to the 20-foot-tall Renanthera storei. Some species produce blossoms no larger than a mosquito, while other blossoms are as large as a 12" dinner plate. They are so intriguing - no wonder people grow them for a hobby, and many a botanist has mysteriously disappeared while trying to collect them.

Bizarre Mating Games

While there are species of orchids that are self-pollinated, the rest are pollinated by bees, wasps, moths, flies butterflies, gnats, ants, and birds. These animals are attracted in different ways, often to a specific species of orchid. For instance, particular bees are attracted to a variety of orchids because of their scent. By collecting scented droplets, they pollinate the flowers. Some blossoms are brightly colored to attract butterflies, while others are dull, but fragrant only at night in order to catch the attention of moths. Many species, like other flowers, are brightly colored and produce sweet nectar to invite birds.

Here are some games that will make you think twice about the distinction between plants and animals. Would you believe that because some orchids resemble female insects by appearance and scent, the male insects attempt to mate with, or steal away, the ' female insect look alike orchid!' Other insects think certain orchid species are the enemy and go right into attack mode. Of course when they fly away coated with pollen, they deposit it onto the stigmas of other flowers.

Another example: certain orchids have sensitive labellums, which close as soon as they are touched. The trapped insects must squeeze through a slim tunnel between the flower column and tip of its labellum to escape, consequently covering its body with pollen. And let's hope they didn't just finish a big dinner.

Susan Orlean asks, are orchids smarter than the bugs?

Noted author of The Orchid Thief: A True Story of Beauty and Obsession, Susan notes many reasons why some orchids certainly appear to have outsmarted insects. She has a cryptic, picturesque, writing style, and we think reading her work will entice many of our subscribers to take up a new pastime - namely growing orchids. We highly recommend her work. Here are some excerpts from her book.

As the insects lick the nectar they are slowly lured into a narrowed tube inside the orchid until their heads are directly beneath the crest of the flower's rostellum (an extension of the stigma, the part of a flower on which pollen germinates). When the insects raise their heads the crest shoots out little darts of pollen that are instantly and firmly cemented to the insects' eyeballs, but then fall off the moment the insects put their heads inside another orchid plant.

How the insects get to another orchid plant is beyond us. This image is so vivid; it hurts to read the words!

Some orchids have straight-ahead good looks but have deceptive and seductive odors. There are orchids that smell like rotting meat, which insects happen to like.

Another orchid smells like chocolate.

By the way, check out In Pursuit of Chocolate, our gourmet chocolate of the month club at chocolatemonthclub.com. We know it will attract you, and anyone who receives it as a gift, might be in the pollinating mood.

No one knows whether orchids evolved to complement insects or whether the orchids evolved first, or whether somehow these two life forms evolved simultaneously, which might explain how two totally different living things came to depend on each other. The harmony between an orchid and its pollinator is so perfect that it is kind of eerie.

Orlean's work will take you back in time and entice you to contemplate the Earth as its life forms began to evolve. And she will challenge your instincts, perceptions, and assessment skills to rethink how all forms of organic life relate.

Orchids thrived in the jungle because they developed the ability to live on air rather than soil and positioned themselves where they were sure to get light and water - high above the rest of the plants on the branches of trees. They thrived because they took themselves out of competition.

If all of this makes orchids seem smart - well, they do seem smart. There is something clever and unplantlike about their determination to survive and their knack for useful deception and their genius for seducing human beings for hundreds and hundreds of years.

The big question is, will human beings ever become that smart? We are so easily seduced by greed, our own images, corrupt business practices, politicians with hidden agendas, and so many other influences that do not sustain our species. Will the pollution we create trigger our migration to places VERY high above our jungle floor? How do we take ourselves out of competition when the population of the world is increasing at such an alarming rate? What must we do in order to continue to thrive as long as the orchids?

Calling All NOVA Fans

You won't want to miss the next broadcast of ' Orchid Hunter ' which will be shown on Tuesday, December 9, 2003 at 8 PM. To make sure that your local station is carrying it at that date and time, go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/orchid/. It originally aired on PBS, November 26, 2002. Here's the program description.

For nine months in 2000, Tom Hart Dyke was a captive of guerrillas [not the animals with hair all over their bodies who thump their chests - then again, we do see many similarities] who seized him while he was collecting wild orchids in the Colombian rain forest. Now Hart Dyke is at it again in the most orchid-rich and one of the most politically unstable parts of Irian Jaya, the western half of the island of New Guinea.

In "Orchid Hunter," NOVA investigates an all-consuming passion that for some people seems to be more precious than life itself. Ranging from the scientific to the sociological, the program covers research at the forefront of plant biology and gives insights from New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean, author of ' The Orchid Thief. '

Long of interest to scientists because of their remarkable evolutionary history, orchids are equally exciting to collectors, who have made them a multibillion-dollar industry. Orchid lovers were recently dazzled by the discovery of a spectacular new species in Peru. With a magenta and purple blossom as big as a human hand, the flower has plant breeders eagerly anticipating a lucrative new line of flashier-than-ever orchids. The dream of discovering and naming such a crowd-pleaser drives some enthusiasts to desperate measures.

"I know that it's got political problems," says tireless orchid hunter Hart Dyke about his latest destination, Irian Jaya. "I know there's a lot of guerrilla activity there; I know that the terrain is terrible, and the diseases are rife, but that's why it's such a good place to go. If you want to find a new species of orchid, you've got to go to places that are dangerous because no one else goes there."

Prime motivation for the 25-year-old amateur botanist is the chance to make a discovery that he can name after his grandmother, who taught him on the family estate in England to love horticulture. NOVA accompanies Hart Dyke on his quest, which he well knows has a tradition of gruesome outcomes.

In 1901, eight orchid hunters went on an expedition to the Philippines. Within a month one was eaten by a tiger, another was drenched with oil and burned alive, five vanished and were never seen again, and one walked out of the forest with 7,000 orchid specimens. [Hum - that kinda makes you wonder about the 8th guy doesn't it.] More recently, a botanical party in New Guinea was held hostage by insurgents for four months, and two of their members were beheaded when the Indonesian army attempted a rescue.

Orchids are one of the most ancient flowering plants; they evolved a survival strategy that dispersed them to every continent except Antarctica. They now number more than 25,000 species, each with an intricate relationship to animal pollinators (usually insects) and fungi in the soil. Fungi supply both nutrients for the growing orchid and food for the seed, allowing the plants to survive in habitats with poor or even no soils.

This close relationship to insects and fungi makes orchids vulnerable to extinction, which is why Hart Dyke's first order of business on arriving in Irian Jaya is to hire a local forester with a permit to collect orchids. (All wild orchids are protected by CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.) Hart Dyke also enlists the services of Papua's two leading orchid experts. The program chronicles his discoveries in one of the last intact rainforest wildernesses left on Earth.